side note: This is actually a big deal. If the medical liability insurance industry had lost its anti-trust exemption, in all likelihood, malpractice premiums would have risen simply out of fear of the unknown. Sharing underwriting data is key to the medmal insurers ability to forecast losses.

The National Association of Professional Insurance Agents (PIA) is hailing the elimination of medical malpractice insurers from the draft of a bill restricting the limited federal insurance antitrust exemption under the McCarran-Ferguson Act.

According to the draft of the bill, to be called the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act, posted on the House Rules Committee website as “text of bill to be introduced,” the scope of the bill has been narrowed to cover health insurers, but not medical malpractice insurers.

“The inclusion of medical malpractice insurance, a property/casualty product, was particularly inappropriate in that it did not relate directly to health insurance,” said PIA National Director of Federal Affairs Mike Becker. “A reduction in medical malpractice insurance rates is best achieved through separate legislation addressing tort reform.”
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side note: Here’s a good look at the potential impact — or lack thereof — by the Illinois Supreme Court decision on medical malpractice caps.

Although medical malpractice awards climbed in the years before Illinois put limits on them, opponents disagree on the impact of the recent Supreme Court’s ruling striking down the caps.

The average award for emotional harm in medical malpractice cases increased 437 percent in the seven years leading up to creation of the 2005 law capping non-economic damages, according to data from the Cook County Jury Verdict Reporter. Rates were highest in 2004, the year before award caps were enacted, with an average award of $4.8 million.

Physicians argue that high awards drive up insurance premiums and make health care more expensive.

“When the cap was reinstated in 2005, premiums for Chicago physicians stabilized and even began to shrink,” said J. James Rohack, president of the American Medical Association in a statement after the court ruling. Before caps on damages, premiums rose steadily 10 to 12 percent a year between 1997 and 2005, Rohack said.

The Medical Malpractice Act limited the amount victims could receive for emotional harm to $500,000 from doctors and $1 million from hospitals.The Illinois Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional earlier this month. This was the third time the court ruled against medical malpractice award caps.

Critics of award caps say the averages don’t tell the entire story.

“A single larger case can skew those numbers,” said Peter Flowers, president of the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association. “So looking at [the award amounts] as an average, isn’t really a clear assessment.”
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side note: Regardless as to whether Rep. Murtha died of medical malpractice or not, will this event have any baring on the larger tort reform debate? Is this an instance anti-tort reformers can point to and say, “See, malpractice is prevalent at every level of medicine”?

There are numerous reports today that but for medical negligence, Congressman John Murtha, who sadly died yesterday, would still be with us. As reported in the Pittsburg Post Gazette, “According to a source close to Mr. Murtha — confirming a report in Politico — doctors inadvertently cut Mr. Murtha’s intestine during the laparoscopic [gallbladder] surgery, causing an infection.” This was also confirmed by his good friend, Rep. Bob Brady (D-PA).

Meanwhile, among the continuing coverage of the truly sick prosecution of Texas nurses who have been “indicted and threatened with 10 years in prison” for reporting to state regulators that a doctor was practicing unsafe medicine (we’ve been covering this since last year), we found an interesting comment from someone in the “tort reform” crowd who, after taking an obligatory swipe at the nurses, said:

It’s possible that the nurses made false accusations maliciously, but that seems something that could be handled through civil suits and then only after the Texas Medical Board adjudicated the complaints. Such overreaching by doctors could backfire, as it would give credence to the proposition that medical malpractice lawsuits are a necessary check to incompetent doctors.

I guess when you’re right, you’re right.

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