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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (37760)	2/19/2005 1:51:59 PM
From: geode00	Respond to of 173976

Tort reform will butcher 'do no harm' [EC: Apparently this is coming soon to a Congress near you...if you live in Washington DC. What if medical malpractice or death-by-doctor DOES NOT decrease US medical costs? OOOOOOOOPPPPPPPPPS!] Published on: 02/17/05 The "tort reform" bill approved by the Georgia Legislature and signed into law this week by Gov. Sonny Perdue may prove to be one of the most destructive pieces of legislation enacted in the state in years. Senate Bill 3 cripples the legal system, not accidentally as a wayward scalpel might, but intentionally. It is designed to prevent juries from delivering the justice that they are charged to produce, even in the worst cases of malpractice by doctors and hospitals. Even in the most egregious cases of incompetence or negligence, such as those that end in the unnecessary death or permanent paralysis of patients, the bill will limit damages for pain and suffering to no more than $350,000. That's a cheap price for a life. And in many cases arising out of emergency room care, the victims or their survivors will effectively have no legal recourse whatsoever. The bill is outrageous for many reasons, not least because it was championed by conservative politicians who in other contexts love to preach about the importance of accountability, about making people take responsibility for their actions and mistakes. That's the argument they use in cutting social spending, in raising prison sentences, in making abortion less accessible: People must be made accountable. But apparently, accountability is good only for the little people. As passage of this law demonstrates, those who are wealthy enough can buy themselves an exemption from the legal system, to ensure that they will not be held accountable in a court of law for the damages that they do. In every other line of work, from truck driving to running a restaurant, citizens are accountable if they cause death or injury. But not in the medical field. The argument is that protecting the medical industry from liability claims will improve the quality of health care in Georgia. That claim contradicts everything we know about basic human nature. When you greatly reduce — or, in many cases, eliminate — the penalty for sloppiness or failure, you're going to get more sloppiness and failure. That is a cruel truth, and even the best-intentioned doctors, nurses and hospitals aren't exempt from it. In addition, the medical industry is under enormous pressure to cut costs, reduce nursing staff, increase productivity and cram as many paying patients through the system as possible. Outside oversight to ensure quality control is almost nonexistent. The threat of a malpractice suit provided at least a modicum of pressure on the system to keep staffing levels up and procedures professional. Now that is gone. As a result, the only effective check on quality will come from within the industry. And as in many lines of work — the legal industry, the law enforcement community and the media industry, among others — the medical world is loath to judge its own. Even when medical groups do move against incompetent doctors, in most cases that incompetence has been identified and brought to public attention through malpractice cases — cases that in many instances will no longer even be filed. In Texas, where similar legislation was passed in 2003, a study by the Dallas Morning News found that malpractice filings fell by 80 percent after their change in law. However, malpractice insurance rates have not fallen by anything close to that amount. The Texas Hospital Association reports its rates have fallen by an average of 8 percent, roughly the same as rates have fallen in Washington state, where no cap has been imposed. So, in return for a modest drop in insurance rates, we will get incompetent doctors who practice for years longer without being detected, punished or removed from the profession. Rural hospitals and medical practices will continue to close because the new law changes nothing about the underlying economics driving that trend. And with hospital administrators freed from the fear of liability, it will mean an even more aggressive bottom-line mentality in medicine. But most of all, we will see innocent victims denied justice.