Yesterday’s White House health summit didn’t produce much of anything yesterday except to show that the Republicans and Democrats are still extremely far from agreeing on much of anything.
We do know from past statements from President Obama that he is interested in working with the leaders of the Republican party to try and do something about the rising, and sometimes obscene costs of professional medical liability insurance.
Yesterday however, we heard from the second most powerful Democratic in the Senate, Dick Durbin from Illinois. He brought up medical malpractice insurance and had some things to say that clearly shows that even though President Obama is interested in working with the Republicans on this, Democrats may not budge. Durbin, before he joined the Senate was a medical malpractice insurance trial lawyer that represented both sides.
A few quotes from Senator Dick Durbin, thanks to the transcript provided by the Washington Post.
The point that’s been made by the president is if we do believe the Congressional Budget Office, when Orrin Hatch asked them how much will we save if we implement the Republican plan on medical malpractice from the House, they said $54 billion over 10 years; $5.4 billion a year is a lot of money, except in the context of the $2.5 trillion bill that we pay each year for health care. It represents one-fifth of 1 percent of the amount of money we spend each year on health care.
The Congressional Budget Office said something else. They said and as you lose accountability for what the doctors and hospitals are doing, more people will die — 4,800 a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s reference to this study.
(Found this on Youtube, a small bit of Senator Dubin’s take on Medical Malpractice Insurance reform):
Now, the Institute of Medicine tells us 98,000 people a year die in America because of medical malpractice. I think there are things that we have put in this bill to change that. Most of you have heard of this Dr. Gawande. We’ve read him. I’ve talked to him on the phone. His “Checklist Manifesto” is a very basic approach to reducing medical errors, which is what we should be focused on.
And I want to say, Mr. President, I think what you and the secretary have done is the right thing — incentivizing states to find innovative ways to reduce medical errors and reduce those lawsuits that should not be filed.
But let me tell you what, limiting the recovery for pain and suffering for someone who is entitled — entitled because they’re innocent victims — to be paid isn’t eliminating junk lawsuits. I will tell you that as far as the president is concerned, in his neighborhood there is a great hospital, which I will not name, and at this hospital a woman went in for a simple removal of a mole from her face. And under general anesthesia, the oxygen caught fire, burning her face. She went through repeated surgeries, scars and deformity. Her life will never be the same. And you are saying that this innocent woman is only entitled to $250,000 in pain and suffering.
I don’t think it’s fair. Our jury system makes that decision, and the states, 30 of them have made a decision on what to do. If you were asked a basic question: Over the last 20 years, has the number of paid malpractice claims in America doubled or been cut in half? If you listen to most people here, you’d say it must have doubled. No. According to the Kaiser Foundation, they’ve been cut in half.
Oh, but how much — how about the money that’s being paid for these malpractice claims? Clearly, that’s gone through the roof. No. Between 2003 and 2008, the total amount paid for malpractice claims in America was cut in half from $8 billion to $4 billion.
This is an important issue. I don’t dispute it and I think we have treated it as an important issue. But to make it the overriding issue is to, I think, really trivialize some of the other things that should be part of this conversation.
Now, we here at My Medical Malpractice Insurance .com haven’t actually double-checked the CBO’s numbers, but we do see an ever growing trend of neither the Democrats or Republicans wanting to make a deal with the other side, no matter what evidence is put on the table.
Will a health care deal be done that will include some type of Tort Reform to help keep medical malpractice insurance costs down, keep physicians in their state, and most importantly, allow patients across the board to have easy access to those physicians? We just don’t know……
We urge all physicians, and health care professionals to contact your elected representatives and explain to them about the absurd costs you are paying for your med-mal insurance and in addition, explain to them how physicians who practice high-risk specialties are moving out of certain states because of those high costs.
MyMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.com staff
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