Tort Reform, Lies, and Lady Justice
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It is all about reforming our tort system, right? I mean fixing the health insurance problem for millions of uninsured people is all about preventing the filing of lawsuits against negligent doctors and hospitals, right? We need to limit or eliminate the constitutional right to jury try for a certain class of citizen to provide health insurance for our citizens, right? We need to provide special immunities to certain professionals to fix the health insurance problem?
Who has a “problem” that any of this fixes? One class of “people” has a problem that this will fix: insurance companies. The insurance industry wants tort reform so the insurance industry can increase profits. It is, in fact, that simple.
No one has ever been able to provide me with objective evidence that contradicts any of the following:
- There are not an abundance of frivolous malpractice suits being filed now and there has not been in recent memory.
- Malpractice claims do not, watch my lips, do not drive up insurance costs. In fact, under oath, many insurance executives have repeatedly testified as such.
- Doctors are not fleeing states because of malpractice claims. In fact it is the very, very small minority of doctors who are sued for malpractice.
- Malpractice claims do not drive up insurance premiums across the whole population of physicians. Empirical evidence demonstrates that little correlation exists between malpractice claims and increased premiums. Insurance executives have, under oath, also testified to that fact.
- Tort reform will never lower insurance costs. The insurance industry simply does not have a track record for doing that.
All of this is a distraction from accomplishing a solution to the real problem. How do we provide health insurance to millions of citizens who are without it? Legislators indebted to the insurance industry need to throw up road blocks and provide distraction they can trump up to be popular with many people in this country.
When 98,000 people die every year and many more are injured from medical malpractice. I must wonder if the tort reformers would be making statements they know are not true if medical negligence killed their wife, their husband, their mother, or their child. Of course they would not. In the height of absolute indifference to the suffering of victims, tort reformers fabricate, invent, and misrepresent; all to benefit an industry who is dumping big dollars into their pockets.
So, if they are successful with roadblocks and propaganda campaigns, the victim will include justice herself.