Posted on 01/16/2003 12:30:10 PM PST by kattracks
1st Add: Includes comments from Alliance of American Insurers)
(CNSNews.com) - President Bush on Thursday called for Congress to pass a law limiting non-economic, punitive damages in medical malpractice suits to $250,000.
"Our medical liability system is broken," the president told a Scranton, Pa. audience.
"A broken system like that first and foremost hurts the patients and the people of America," said Bush, because "junk lawsuits" drive up malpractice insurance premiums and drive innocent doctors out of town, according to the president.
Non-economic damages include jury awards for "pain and suffering," while punitive damages are imposed as a way of punishing a defendant. Defendants can be required to pay non-economic and punitive damages on top of damages for loss of pay, medical expenses and other costs connected to a plaintiff's injury.
\li30\sb30 President Bush's plan would cap recoveries for non-economic damages; reserve punitive damages for cases where they are justified; provide for payments of judgments over time rather than in a single, lump sum; ensure that old cases could not be brought years after an event; reduce the amount doctors must pay if a plaintiff has received other payments from an insurer to compensate for their losses; and would provide that defendants pay judgments in proportion to their fault.
In the American legal system, laws governing civil disputes are usually decided by state legislatures, but Bush said this time the federal government needs to intervene.
"It is a national problem that needs a national solution," said Bush, because the direct cost of malpractice insurance and defensive medicine raises health care costs paid by the federal government though Medicare, Medicaid, veterans' health care and health care afforded to government employees.
The House passed a medical malpractice bill last year but the measure stalled in the Senate. Bush acknowledged that the Senate remains the major stumbling block to reform and urged citizens to lobby their home state senators on the need for damage caps.
The insurance industry is pushing Congress to pass legislation this year.
Rodger S. Lawson, president of the Alliance of American Insurers, urged Congress to enact medical malpractice liability reforms to reduce the number and size of malpractice claims.
\li30\sb30 Lawson called the president's plan a "solid step forward for the American health care system and the American economy."
"Reforming the medical malpractice system is critical, because the rising costs of health care are borne by numerous insurance lines: workers' compensation, automobile, homeowners, etc. All lines share some of the escalating costs," Lawson said. More to Follow...
See Earlier Stories:
New Year No Fun For Pennsylvania Doctors
Study: Fear of Litigation Has 'Stunning Impact' on Doctors, Health Care
That number is based on a sampling, of course, and exaggerated for effect. I have a couple friends who are attorneys and they are, by and large, reasonable people. I have dated three women attorneys and have corresponded with a few others and now avoid them like the plague.
"Pain and suffering".....you can sue an obstetrician for a difficult birth until the child is 18. That means if he/she has a learning disability and has trouble in High School you could sue for any amount for the "pain and suffering" the child has endured.
You can also get unlimited punitive damages......meaning exactly what you said......you want to "punish" the doctor for what he/she did.
That's the kind of garbage these caps will put an end to.
That's not what the first line of the article says:
"(CNSNews.com) - President Bush on Thursday called for Congress to pass a law limiting non-economic, >>>punitive damages<<< in medical malpractice suits to $250,000."
Punitive damages are punishment damages for a doctor's negligence, if proven in court to the satisfaction of a jury. If a surgeon amputates your healthy leg rather than the diseased one, or removes your healthy lung, rather than the cancerous one, is $250,000 enough of a punishment towards a negligent surgeon? I don't support juries rewarding people for their injuries, but doctors don't police themselves. They are sent right back out to practice negligent medicine again. Allow the public access to a data base so we can determine doctors' lawsuit histories, so we can assess their competence. When licenses are permanently revoked for negligence, *then* cap the punitive damages.
Actually, Einstein, there have been a few well publicized closings and close calls in the D.C. area in recent years. And things are only getting worse. Sorry you think my hypothetical, in response to another hypothetical, is a fairy tale. But I'm not exactly looking for your approval, since you're obviously not a close neighbor of reality.
I agree with the first sentence here, but I'm not sure what you mean by the second.
I assume you mean that as long as the AMA protects bad doctors and lets them keep their licenses, punitive damages should be unlimited.
I see those as separate issues. What we have here is a medical organization that protects its own AND blood in the water trial lawyers and greedy people who will file malpractice suits for nothing at all.
You can't delay reform of one until the other happens. We have to have caps on malpractice suits or many good Docs will not be able to afford to practice, and many patients will be without healthcare.
Can't speak for everyone else, but I can't stand insurance companies. But they still rate higher in my book than ambulance chasers. And what if your father had hired himself an attorney that got a nice $50K or $100K award? Sounds real good until the attorney takes a third of it.
It's the medical system that's broken because of the good intentions of the federal government.
Judges can reduce punitive damages if they are deemed excessive, no? Then there's always the appeals process.
Weeding out the bad physicians by revoking their licenses will reduce the number of lawsuits that get to a jury. I don't support punishing the victims, like you left with a cancerous lung, or facing another amputation, leaving you a paraplegic, and letting the doc off with $250,000 in punitive damages.
I think you'd see an increase of men and women in medical schools too, not so fearful of mm lawsuits. I don't believe all the blame should be placed at the feet of attorneys. Doctors should police themselves, but they have lobbyists, too, unfortunately.
I don't know if this is being applied to wrongful death cases too, but what would you think about O J Simpson getting off with $250,000 in punitive damages for killing Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman? If the attempt to limit punitive damages in wrongful death cases isn't being promoted now, it soon will be.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.