Opinions & Editorials: Plaintiff Bar
Trial Bar vs Tort Reform
Rep. Lamar Smith
10.03.09
(Politico.com) A recent op-ed in POLITICO by Anthony Tarricone, president of the American Association of Justice, describes the thousands of participants at hundreds of health care town halls as “angry mobs” scaring seniors with claims of death panels. He rushed to defend trial lawyers, who he claimed were being used as a “scapegoat for all America’s ills and woes.”
But my experience with the health care debate has been quite different from Tarricone’s tall tale. The thousands of people who attended my public forums were not angry mobs; they were concerned citizens exercising their constitutional rights. They did not scream, shout or attempt to burn trial lawyers at the stake. They came to express their views — as Americans in a democracy.
Defensive Medicine Takes a Financial Toll
Dr. Ogelsby Young
10.04.09
Total spending on medical malpractice was estimated at $30.4 billion in 2007. Although that is a substantial figure, those against medical-legal tort reform argue that it amounts to just over 1 percent of total U.S. health care spending. What they fail to recognize are the hidden costs of our medical-legal practice system - the indirect costs of defensive medicine.
All physicians would admit to ordering lab tests, recommending radiological studies and even performing procedures to avoid a lawsuit or better defend ourselves if we are sued.
Look no further than my specialty of obstetrics for a good example of defensive medicine. Our country’s cesarean section rate in 1970 was 5 percent. Today more than 30 percent of births are by cesarean section. Babies have not grown that much bigger! And, remarkably, the incidence of cerebral palsy has not changed during the 35 years of increasing cesarean section rates. Good science has shown that less than 10 percent of cerebral palsy has anything to do with events during labor and delivery. Regrettably, obstetricians have learned that our liability for the outcome of a birth is markedly reduced by performing a c-section. As one of my colleagues said, “We are never sued for the cesarean section we have done, but when we are sued it is often for the c-section we did not perform.”
Why Medical Malpractice is Off Limits
Phil Howard, Common Good
09.29.09
Eliminating defensive medicine could save upwards of $200 billion in health-care costs annually, according to estimates by the American Medical Association and others. The cure is a reliable medical malpractice system that patients, doctors and the general public can trust.
But this is the one reform Washington will not seriously consider. That’s because the trial lawyers, among the largest contributors to the Democratic Party, thrive on the unreliable justice system we have now.
Almost all the other groups with a stake in health reform—including patient safety experts, physicians, the AARP, the Chamber of Commerce, schools of public health—support pilot projects such as special health courts that would move beyond today’s hyper-adversarial malpractice lawsuit system to a court that would quickly and reliably distinguish between good and bad care.
The support for some kind of reform reflects a growing awareness among these groups that managing health care sensibly, including containing costs, is almost impossible when doctors go through the day thinking about how to protect themselves from lawsuits.
Selling Out Doctors to Pay Off Trial Lawyers
Newt Gingrich and Wayne Oliver, Center for Health Transformation
09.07.09
(as printed at Politico.com) Civil justice reform, which is sometimes referred to as “tort reform,” is not addressed in any health reform bill now being considered by Congress. As a matter of fact, civil justice reform is rarely being discussed even though it should be a critical component of every discussion and in every legitimate health reform bill.
Physicians understand its importance. And so do the American people. Many are beginning to wonder why it’s not in any bill.
Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, at a town hall meeting in Virginia last week said, “Tort reform is not in the bill because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers. And, that is the plain and simple truth.”
The Plaintiffs vs. The Boards
Steve Hantler
08.30.09
The greatest risk is that just as businesses struggle to bring back jobs, our strength will be sapped by a new wave of lawsuits. The plaintiffs’ bar has spent tens of millions of dollars to win a majority of state houses across America. Now the plaintiffs’ bar is preparing to invest millions more in political campaigns, advertising, and lobbying to deepen their political influence and win dramatically expanded liability laws.
The Trial Lawyers’ Earmark: Using Medicare to Finance the Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous
Edwin Meese, III and Hans A. von Spakovsky, The Heritage Foundation
08.31.09
In one of the starkest examples of how plaintiffs’ lawyers want to use Congress to get rich at the expense of the American taxpayer, an amendment that would have generated abusive Medicare litigation on a massive scale—along with the usual huge attorneys’ fees—was recently added to the health care reform bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.[1] The current Medicare statute simply ensures that Medicare is reimbursed for the medical benefits it pays when a third party is legally responsible for a Medicare beneficiary’s injuries or medical costs.
Defensive Efforts Largely Successful But Litigation Industry Lobbying Will Remain Relentless
Tiger Joyce, American Tort Reform Association
08.15.09
With three consecutive monthly articles in this publication earlier in the year, I laid out the American Tort Reform Association’s analyses of the litigation industry’s unprecedented lobbying campaign in statehouses across the country and the types of liability-expanding legislation it was expected to pursue. As 2009 legislative sessions have now ended in most states and are beginning to wind down in others, this is a good time for an update of both the trial lawyers’ campaign and ATRA’s “Defensive Efforts” to hold the line.
Sue City
John P. Avlon
08.16.09
(Forbes.com) New York City spends more money on lawsuits than the next five largest American cities—Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Philadelphia—combined. The city’s $568 million outlay in fiscal year 2008 was more than double what it spent 15 years ago and 20 times what it paid in 1977. New York now allocates more taxpayer dollars to settling personal-injury lawsuits than it does to parks, transportation, homeless services or the City University system. As the city seeks ways to save money during the financial crisis, it should focus on reforming the warped system that makes such unreasonable and unproductive expenditures possible.
