A piece aired tonight on NPR covering Bush's visit to Madison County, IL, dubbed the "hellhole" of malpractice lawsuits due to multiple, large jury awards for medical malpractice suits.
It's time to stop the GOP from framing this issue as one of "liberal lawyers driving doctors out of business" and call it for what it is: a sell-out to corporate insurance agencies.
personal vantage point below:
This diary is mostly an emotional rant provoked by the NPR story. Every time I hear another politician waxing righteously about limiting jury awards for malpractice (especially when it's Rick Santorum) I feel that it's necessary to tell this story:
A few years ago my dad, a former marathon runner and 5 letter varsity college athlete, began the process of knee reconstruction. He's had life long knee problems, but they had deteriorated to the point that he had to give up a number of activities - he resigned as head basketball coach, took early retirement in part because his job required standing on hard floors that were unforgiving to his ailing knees.
He had his first surgery, on his left knee, and it went as smoothly as these things go. Unfortunately, during his recovery, his ortheopedic surgeon was hit with a frivilous lawsuit, lost the case, and gave up practicing.
Dad continued with the same practice, seeing his surgeon's partner, who performed surgery to install the artificial joint in his right knee. Not long after, Dad began having a lot of problems, but it took nearly a year until it was determined that he had received an artificial joint manufactured with a non-FDA approved lubricant that repelled flesh, causing a pocket around the joint.
A reconstructive replacement surgery followed, and a series of bad luck - a car accident required yet a third revision on his right knee. Today, my Dad, who once ran marathons, spends every day in pain. When my 4 year old asked Grandpa to race in the yard I had to walk away so that neither of them saw me cry when Dad responded "I'm sorry, I can't."
The .pdf from the GAO on contributing factors to rising malpractice rates isn't working for me at the moment, but I remember that the numbers clearly showed that insurance companies bottom line, tied to the stock market, has a much larger influence on rates than malpractice suits or jury awards. Health care costs and medical malpractice problems are NOT the fault of the consumer - they are generated by the business of health care, the corporate entities that mire the system in paperwork, and the bottom line of the insurance companies. Caps on malpractice awards are part of the erosion of civil liberties in favor of corporations.
My Dad's former surgeon has begun practicing again, but no longer operates. He is fully supportive of the class action lawsuit my parents joined against the company that manufactured the faulty joint. Bush's proposed tort reform would make their lawsuit impossible.
THESE are the stories we need to tell, the faces we need to put forward when Bush begins his offensive on the legal right of American citizens to seek redress through the courts. We should insist on tort reform that safeguards our rights while fixing problems with the system. Binding arbitration before a panel of legal and medical experts makes more sense to our family than trial by jury -- and claims the high road, by both fixing the system and protecting our legal rights.