Not the answer
I just read Gov.-elect Ed Rendell's proposal to tap health insurance reserves to pay current malpractice costs ("Rendell Unveils Plan to Cut Physician Malpractice Premiums: Proposal Would Draw Funds From Health Insurers' Reserves," Dec. 31). I believe that this line of thinking can turn the state's health-care finances into an Enron-type system of "robbing Peter to pay Paul" while ignoring the long-term problem.
The monies going into the health-care system are insurance premiums, paid by businesses and families, and tax dollars for public programs. The monies going out of the system are the costs of providing health-care services and administration. Part of the cost of a provider's services will be used to pay the cost of the malpractice insurance. Health-care providers are threatening to walk out, because they are in a system where the pricing for services is negotiated by the health maintenance organizations, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. Without an increase in provider reimbursements, any increase in malpractice premiums reduces a provider's earnings.
Taxing reserves does not address the escalating cost of malpractice insurance. Rendell's idea simply pays today's malpractice costs with dollars that were earmarked for future medical claims. Malpractice costs will continue to rise and at some point the reserves are gone.
I'd like to see three areas looked at: 1) Is our legal system awarding too many/too generous judgments to plaintiffs? Are too many cases being settled out of court due to expediency rather than merit? 2) Do our state medical boards revoke the licenses of those who have repeated malpractice claims? I have heard that the bulk of state malpractice claims are incurred by the same, very small percentage of doctors. 3) Can we educate doctors better in areas of risk management?
Unless we address the rising malpractice costs, they will ultimately get passed on to us, through higher health premiums.
JEFFREY KOONTZ
South Side
Don't blame juries
The Post-Gazette reported Dec. 25 that the doctors' lobby blames large jury awards as the cause of insurance premium increases ("Mass Exodus of Doctors Feared: Soaring Malpractice Rates Prompt Physician Survey"). Lawyers say the number of malpractice lawsuits has dropped 25 percent in the last eight years, and they blame insurance companies for raising malpractice premiums to make up for bad investments in the stock market over the past few years.
However, has the PG done any research into the accuracy of the respective claims by either interest group (the various medical societies or plaintiffs' bar)? If it had, it would know that doctors have no factual basis for claiming that jury awards have caused an increase in malpractice insurance premiums.
Conversely, there is a wealth of information that makes manifest that the recent rise in malpractice insurance premiums is due to the cyclical vagaries in the insurance business cycle, utter fiscal mismanagement on the part of these malpractice carriers and the failure of the medical profession to police its own and take any action to curb the excessive number of medical errors that occur annually (and that kill about 98,000 Americans annually as reported by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine). See links to the following Web sites: Center for Justice & Democracy (http://centerjd.org/) and Americans for Insurance Reform (www.insurance-reform.org). Also, recent articles in The Wall Street Journal (June 24, 2002) and The Plain Dealer of Cleveland (Oct. 20, 2002) reported no causal relationship between jury awards and malpractice premiums.
It certainly would be nice -- and dare I say in the public interest -- for the PG to do its own homework on this issue and then demand that the medical profession provide some factual basis for its claim that jury awards are the cause of the increase in malpractice premiums.
The trial bar -- more specifically, the trial bar that represents injured patients (the victims of medical errors) -- is, as set forth above, able to provide independent information on the falsity of the doctors' outlandish claims. Unfortunately, when you also report what the doctors claim without requiring any proof, you become a shill for their propaganda -- and that certainly cannot be in the public interest.
If you do that research, you will find that while the doctors may now indeed be facing unfair and excessive malpractice premiums, the cause of the increase of those premiums has nothing to do with jury awards. Consequently, any legislative effort to limit a patient's right to recover for injuries inflicted as a result of medical errors cannot be advanced based on the baseless and false claims of the leadership of the medical profession.
MIKE GEORGE
Downtown
Editor's note: The writer is a lawyer representing patients in medical negligence actions.
Crisis affects us, too
While the discussion and interim measures taken to address the medical liability insurance crisis are valuable ("Rendell Unveils Plan to Cut Physician Malpractice Premiums: Proposal Would Draw Funds From Health Insurers' Reserves," Dec. 31), lost in the discussion is that the crisis threatens Pennsylvania's long-term care providers as well as doctors and hospitals.
Long-term care providers, too, are finding insurance premiums increasing by several hundred percent or the sudden unavailability of insurance at any price, even though such increases are not justified by actual loss experience.
Along with cutbacks in Medicare and chronic underfunding of Medicaid, a worsening front-line staffing crisis and a sometimes counterproductive enforcement process, the insurance crisis is another straw on the camel's back of a long-term care system that is unsustainable in its present form.
Pennsylvania faces a demographic explosion of baby boomers hitting retirement age in the next few years, as well as the reality that the over-85 population is the fastest-growing segment of our population. PANPHA looks forward to taking part in the discussion of issues in long-term care -- including the insurance crisis -- with the incoming Rendell administration.
RON BARTH
President and CEO
PANPHA
Mechanicsburg
Editor's note: PANPHA is an association of nonprofit providers of senior housing and services.
Cap the damages
Gov.-elect Ed Rendell's plan to help solve the medical liability crisis by assessing insurance companies will not work.
The problem with our present liability system is out-of-control costs and windfall judgments. Rendell's plan would dump even more water (money) into a badly leaking bucket.
Why hasn't California's model legislation that places a cap on recovery for pain and suffering at $250,000 been implemented in Pennsylvania?
Throwing more money at the problem will not fix the leaking bucket. The plaintiffs' bar bears the responsibility for this dilemma.
ROBERT W. FORD, M.D.
Hampton
Reassign this burden
Regarding the medical malpractice insurance crisis: Has there been any consideration given to using the same method of insurance coverage that is purchased by passengers prior to their airplane flights, cruises, etc.?
Why not place the burden (cost) on the patient rather than the doctor?
G. ROBERT BODGE
Moon
Make loser pay all costs
The idea of using money set aside to pay doctors and hospitals for malpractice insurance is totally out of order ("Rendell Unveils Plan to Cut Physician Malpractice Premiums: Proposal Would Draw Funds From Health Insurers' Reserves," Dec. 31). These funds are for curing the sick.
The solution to the high insurance premiums is a rigorous evaluation of the merits of the case and a limit to pain and suffering. A most important change would be "loser pays all costs."
This will discourage unscrupulous lawyers from bringing frivolous lawsuits.
JOHN A. FITZGERALD
Ross
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