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...
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If the doctors trash your health, economic damages will take care of you.
What is happening, however, is that punitive damages are like hitting the lottery to the rest of your family.
It's the rest of your family that wants to cash in.
It's time for that to stop.
Punative damages should be limited and then taxed at 95%.
When they have all the work they can deal with at the going rate, they have no incentive to negotiate. When there are more lawyers than workable lawsuits, they will either change their operating basis, or retire early
One of the biggest lies in tort reform theory is that there is no "loser pays" system in the U.S.
Of course, we lawyers will make money either way it goes, as there would be a burgeoning interest in sovereign immmunity law.
Economic damages such as lost wages, medical expenses would not be limited by Bush's plan. The 250K figure was the one adopted in California and a few other states so I suspect that is why he selected it. It seems to be working OK in those states.
For myself, I can go along with that figure. It seems like an amount that would sufficiently recognize the intangible "non-economic losses" that courts make this award for. There can be room for reasonable disagreement on this, I grant.
Regards.
I doubt it. It's something else, never what they tell you.
You find non-economic damages capped, and the ruination of lives, all so middle managers at the docs insurance company can get bigger annual bonuses and golf outings at nicer golf courses.
Is that justice?
It is if your stupid enough not to check on the background and workings of the doctor its called PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY !!! ..... If one doctor recomends another ask for referances and standing in the medicle community dont just jump because a dctor says jump to many people leave it in the hands of others especially when its NOT them being operated on!
You are so right. ~ And working Americans should be shown how they pay for these legal costs twice...once at the time of care...and again through higher insurance premiums.
As this national debate unfolds, we must remember that the proposed caps are for non-economic awards (which I read as the "pain and suffering" and physician "punishment" part of a settlement.)
Additional settlements for articulated economic loss are available on top of this cap.
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