May 01 2003
Why Medical Malpractice Caps are Wrong - Published by the Waukegan News Sun
By: Patrick Salvi
The News Sun
August 14-15, 2004
Avery reasonable concern we all have is the prospect of not having access to health care. When doctors say that they are leaving their practice due to high malpractice insurance premiums, caused by large jury verdicts, this fear floats to the surface of America 's anxiety. It is, after all, critical for all Americans to have access to quality health care.
But Americans must resist the temptation of blaming lawyers and lawsuits without considering the facts, context, or ethical obligations. Imposing a limit on non-economic compensation not only would eliminate countless meritorious cases from ever seeing a courtroom, but it would not cure any trouble that patients and physicians face due to medical malpractice premiums. According to Medical Economics, many states that have already enacted these caps (such as Texas , Florida , Nevada , West Virginia , Ohio , and Michigan ) still have problems with high malpractice premiums. Insurance companies themselves often admit that these caps are not a magical remedy for any ailment regarding high malpractice insurance.
There are also many other reasons doctors relocate, all of which have nothing to do with insurance or jury verdicts. In rural areas, for instance, a general lack of technology, hospitals, patients, and income are among a few reasons physicians have left (or refuse to establish a practice in that area in the first place). But a cap on damages will not change these things. Nor will it significantly reduce the cost of health care; if caps reduced health care costs to levels estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, any savings would go unnoticed by the overall population.
What a cap will do, however, is prevent justice from being served. The fundamental pillar of our civil justice system is to make those who have been injured whole again, whether the party at fault is a doctor in a hospital, a drunk driver on the highway, or a careless corporation manufacturing a dangerous product. We cannot fully replace a limb that has been wrongly amputated. We cannot make those blinded as a result of medical negligence see. We cannot make those paralyzed by medical negligence walk. And we surely cannot replace the loss of a loved one, killed because a physician made a negligent error. But we can fully and fairly compensate those injured in the best way our country, and our civil justice system, possibly can.
A cap for health care providers in medical malpractice cases is plain wrong, and will solve nothing. It will not reduce insurance premiums, lower the cost of health care, or increase access to health care. All it will do is deprive the most severely injured of fair compensation – many of whom will then need government tax dollars to care for them.
