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

To: fresc who wrote (38666)	3/2/2005 10:59:14 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

I was hoping Bush would address Health care issues. I think the only health care issues that gets a priority is liability reform. Yet, according to a Congressional study, with Bush's liability reform, malpractice insurance rates would be reduced by an estimated 0.4% ... I don't expect that liability reform is going to be the savior of rising medical costs. Government and industry data show only a modest rise in malpractice claims over the last decade. And last year, the trend in payments for malpractice claims against doctors and other medical professionals turned sharply downward, falling 8.9 percent, to a nationwide total of $4.6 billion, according to data compiled by the Health and Human Services Department. "There is an underlying cost push," said J. Robert Hunter, the director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, who is a former insurance regulator in Texas. "But there has not been an explosion of big jury verdicts or settlements. It's a constant drip, drip every year." Lawsuits against doctors are just one of several factors that have driven up the cost of malpractice insurance, specialists say. Lately, the more important factors appear to be the declining investment earnings of insurance companies and the changing nature of competition in the industry. The recent spike in premiums - which is now showing signs of steadying - says more about the insurance business than it does about the judicial system. "You get these jolts in insurance prices periodically, and they attract a lot of attention," said Frank A. Sloan, a Duke University economist who has been following medical malpractice trends for nearly 20 years. "They're a result of a confluence of many things." Data compiled by both the federal government and by insurance organizations show costs for the insurance companies climbing steadily over the last decade at an average annual rate of about 3 percent, after adjusting for inflation. Over most of that period, premiums for doctors rose modestly and sometimes even dropped as the insurance companies battled for market share in a scramble to collect more money to invest in strong bond and stock markets. But when the markets turned sour and the reserves of insurers shriveled, companies began to double and triple the costs for doctors. "The insurers were catching up, getting to where they should have been," said Larry Smarr, the president of the Physician Insurers Association of America, a trade group of companies that provide more than 60 percent of the nation's medical malpractice insurance. ... nytimes.com jttmab