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| myths of malpractice I | | Date Created: Feb 27, 2005, 04:27 PM |
The power and money of the legal establishment and their political, media, "consumer advocate" group, and liberal supporters is getting increasingly desperate. They lost the Presidential election and it's lawyer liberal candidates. Tort reform was passed in several states and looks increasingly likely to pass at the federal level under the second Bush Administration. Class action lawsuit reform has already made it. Malpractice insurance crises are disrupting several states and the "we're defending the lttle guy against all those bad doctors" line is starting to wear a bit thin.
Along comes the "newspaper of record" with all the (biased) news that fits to the rescue. First it was Behind Those Medical Malpractice Rates by a couple authors who are rather good at looking as if they've provided a balanced viepoint and supporting data. Walter Olson at Overlawyered.com took apart that effort in a two part effort, as did Ted Frank at PointofLaw.com.
Recently on old school TV media there was what to me looked like a planted story about bad doctors. And today I received a tip on another New Left Times story called, Bush's Next Target: Malpractice Lawyers. The lead blurb to this story makes the bias evident if it weren't already.
"The president's plan to cap awards would help lower costs but would do little to reduce medical errors or compensate injured patients, say health care analysts."
As if there's a shred of evidence that the current system reduces medical errors and compensates "injured patients" fairly and equitably.
In fairness, the article does say,
"THE medical liability system, health care analysts agree, is deeply flawed. But they also generally agree that the solution offered by the administration and the Republican Congress - putting a ceiling on damages - addresses only one aspect of the problem."
This is true as far as it goes. But of course it's because the problem runs much deeper and federal law is unlikely to be able to get at that. The problem is the power of the courts and the financial incentive for lawyers to bring lawsuits (as well as to a lesser degree, defend against them). The article goes on,
"There is a strong consensus among people who have really studied the issue that caps on damages would tend to keep costs down and make liability insurance more affordable for doctors," Dr. Sage said. "And there is a universal consensus that caps would do absolutely nothing to reduce medical errors or to compensate injured patients. If anything, caps on damages would make those problems worse "
And the reason for that is because plaintiff attorneys have exaggerated the problem, in fact they largely created it, and they've raised the stakes and costs of litigation so high that caps on awards (which do work) make contingency fee jury trials too expensive and threats of lawsuits less threatening.
We haven't begun to hear the end of this. The real problem is going to be getting around the lying with statistics approach to medical errors. |
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