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Michelle M. Mello, David M. Studdert, Catherine M. DesRoches, Jordon Peugh, Kinga Zapert, Troyen A. Brennan, and William M. Sage Caring For Patients In A Malpractice Crisis: Physician Satisfaction And Quality Of Care Health Affairs, July/August 2004; 23(4): 42-53. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] [Reprints & Permissions]

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Medical Malpractice Insurance Reform

Gregory Pawelski   ( 12 July 2004 )

Medical Malpractice Insurance Reform 12 July 2004
Gregory Pawelski, Retired Send letter to journal: Re: Medical Malpractice Insurance Reform gdpawel{at}attglobal.net Gregory Pawelski	If Congress or state legislatures enact limits on the legal rights of patients, the biggest winner will be the property and casualty insurance industry, which has already seen its profits go up almost 1,000 percent in 2003. The losers will be innocent victims with devastating injuries due to medical negligence. The property/casualty industry's profits rose 997 percent in 2003. The industry made $29.9 billion in profits that year, almost ten times the $3 billion they made in 2002 (AM Best Statistical Report, Advanced Financial Results, Property Casualty Writers 2003, April 12, 2004; and Insurance Services Office & Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, "Sharp Increase in P/C Industry's Net Income Propels Surplus Upward in 2003," April 14, 2004). The insurance industry's "return on equity in 2004 is likely to soar above double digits for the first time since 1997" (Insurance Information Institute, "Groundhog Forecast for 2004."). Insurers have refused to lower malpractice insurance premiums after caps and other "tort reforms" have been enacted. States that have enacted legal restrictions have seen their insurance rates continue to shoot up, even after passing severe liability limits (e.g., Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Missouri, and Texas). Legislation to place limits on medical malpractice liability hurts patients by restricting their rights to hold physicians, hospitals, insurance companies, HMOs, and drug and medical device manufacturers accountable for injuries or death resulting from negligent care. The bill will do nothing to make health care or medical malpractice insurance more available or more affordable. A report by the American Medical Association's Board of Trustees to its House of Delegates acknowledged that increasing malpractice insurance premiums were linked to the insurance underwriting cycle. As for the claim of ever-climbing jury awards, studies of verdicts are skewed by what study sponsors leave in or leave out. The medical associations looked only at reported jury verdicts. The trial lawyers tracked all verdicts, including non-jury verdicts, through appeals, settlements, and court-ordered reductions. Why is tort reform even on the national agenda yet, at a time when insurance industry profits are booming, tort filings are declining, only 2 percent of injured people sue for compensation, punitive damages are rarely awarded, liability insurance costs for businesses are minuscule, medical malpractice insurance and claims are both less than 1 percent of all health care costs in America, and premium-gouging underwriting practices of the insurance industry have been widely exposed? Limits on the rights of people hurt by medical malpractice will further victimize them and their families, and it will help neither patients nor doctors. The real beneficiaries will be insurance companies. And who are the insurance companies? According to the Physician Insurers Association of America, a trade group of about 50 doctor-owned malpractice insurers, they cover about 60 percent of U.S. doctors in private practice and hospitals. It's the profits of these doctor-owned insurance companies that doctors want to protect.