Insurers Want To Take Away Patients Rights

[Guest guest]

Insurers want to take away patients’ rights

 

 

 

by Leo V. Boyle and Roger Felice

 

 

 

Medical malpractice insurance premiums are increasing nationwide because of

insurers’ bad business decisions, bad investments, a faltering economy, and a

few “bad apple” doctors who are responsible for most of the injuries and deaths

suffered by patients.

 

 

 

The insurance companies blame—and, worse, want Congress and state legislatures

to respond to their problems by punishing—people who have had the wrong side of

the brain operated on, cancer mis-diagnosed, or been blinded by laser surgery

gone wrong. And doctors, who don’t like paying higher premiums any more than

the rest of us, are following their insurers’ lead.

 

 

 

This medical malpractice " crisis " is nothing new. Similar insurance “crises”

surfaced in the mid-1970s and 1980s, when, like today, insurance company profits

dropped. During these cycles, some state legislatures were pressured to

restrict the legal rights of innocent victims—theoretically to bring down

insurance rates. It didn’t work.

 

 

 

In 1975, California enacted an absolute limit on the amount a citizen jury (you,

your friends, neighbors and co-workers)—after hearing all the evidence—can order

negligent healthcare providers to pay patients they injure or the families of

those they kill. Now, 27 years later, California doctors pay 20 percent more

for medical malpractice coverage than the national average, according the

American Medical Association's Physician Socioeconomic Statistics, 2000-2002.

 

 

 

This " reform " did not, as promised, reduce malpractice premiums, which, in fact,

are higher in the states that have limited injured patients rights than in those

which haven’t.

 

 

 

The American Insurance Association [AIA, 3/13/02 news release]—echoed by the

leaders of the American Tort Reform Association—admits that limiting the rights

of injured people, as it advocates, does not reduce insurance premiums: " [T]he

insurance industry never promised that tort reform would achieve specific

premium savings. "

 

 

 

The problem is not that injured people seek justice, and the solution is not

punishing those unfortunate enough to have suffered at the hands of a bad

doctor, as the insurance industry proposes.

 

 

 

The problem with medical malpractice is that it occurs far too often. According

to the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report, up to 98,000 patients die in U.S.

hospitals each year as a result of preventable medical errors. Malpractice is

America’s eighth leading cause of death, killing more than breast cancer or

automobile crashes.

 

 

 

 

Most injured patients and their survivors never learn that they or their loved

ones were victims of medical malpractice. Only one out of eight instances of

malpractice results in a claim, according to a Harvard study.

 

 

 

A conspiracy of silence protects many negligent doctors.

 

 

 

A West Virginia Sunday Gazette-Mail investigation revealed that just 40 doctors

were responsible for more than one-fourth of the 2,300 cases of medical

malpractice reported to the state's Board of Medicine between 1993 and 2001.

Analysis of medical negligence records found that, from 1992 to 2001, only 16

percent of Kentucky’s doctors were responsible for 100 percent of the medical

malpractice there. These states are not unique.

 

 

 

It is clear that a small percentage of " bad-apple " doctors commit a large

percentage of medical malpractice. One would think the profession and its

insurers would weed out the repeat offenders. Not so.

 

 

 

Unlike auto insurers, most medical malpractice insurers don't base premium rates

on the doctor's experience. In other words, good doctors – and far too many

innocent patients who are injured or killed – pay for bad doctors.

 

 

 

So why a medical malpractice “crisis " now? Just like in the '70's and 80's, the

economy has recently declined. Insurance company profits—mostly from

investments—suffer from bad business decisions. St. Paul Insurance Co., for

example, announced it was leaving the malpractice insurance business, claiming

malpractice verdicts were a problem, but failed to mention it lost $108 million

in the Enron debacle.

 

 

 

Insurers also play numbers games with rates. " As the economy enjoyed a magic

carpet ride in the 1990s, insurers kept rates artificially low because they

earned more money investing than by writing policies, " concluded Medical

Liability Monitor editor Carol Brierly Golin [“Rising Malpractice Premiums Hit

Florida,”12/19/01].

 

 

 

And what about claims that rising malpractice premiums force doctors to quit the

profession or move out of state? A Philadelphia Inquirer investigation found no

such trend in Pennsylvania. Nor is it true in West Virginia, New York,

Mississippi, Nevada, Texas or other states where the claim has been made.

 

 

 

The negligence of bad doctors and the bad business decisions of insurance

companies are not the fault of patients who are mistreated. Yet it is injured

patients who will be punished if insurers and doctors succeed in limiting

justice to help solve their self-inflicted troubles.

 

 

 

 

 

Leo V. Boyle is president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA),

a Washington, D.C. group committed to safeguarding victims' rights,

strengthening America's civil justice system, and fostering the disclosure of

information crucial to public health and safety. Roger Felice is president of

the Washington State Trial Lawyers Association, which includes more than 3,500

plaintiff attorneys statewide.

 

Consumers can learn more about their legal rights at www.atla.org and

www.consumerrights.net/press.html

 

 

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