Attorneys are furiously filing medical malpractice lawsuits in Cook County to beat damage caps

How amazing – lawyers trying to do what is in the best interests of their clients and get cases filed before arbitrary limits are placed on them.

That’s so horrible. I’m sure Kevin would not want that if it were him that was unlucky enough to be a victim of medical malpractice. He’d want his lawyer to wait as long as possible.

Better than you as a partner.

I would expect uncertainty for a few years before seeing any trend on the rates. They have to deal with a spike in cases, and have to wait until the law is proved constitutional, lest they drop rates and find they are hit with suits harder than ever.

Of course you knew that.

I couldn’t believe Illinois, of all places, passes tort reform. There must have been a lawyer who finally suffered for lack of a doctor in southern Illinois.

It must be all Lawyers replying to this thread. It can’t possibly be patients who have been injured in some way by their Drs. and waitting for a mass tort settlement. If so, they would most definitely be be more angry at their Lawyers than what any of these people seem to be. Lawyers don’t give 2 cents about their clients receiving compensation over a wrong done to them, they care about robbing the medical profession. I can hardly believe the clients who are so happy to become part of a medical malpractice lawsuit that will eventually settle for probably $50,ooo per claim. which means if your attormey has 5,000 clients and he takes 30% of each claim, guess who gets rich, for this great injustice that you have suffered? Surely not you! Wake up America, your Lawyer don’t give a damn about you.

>>I think they’re still waiting in Missouri, after the first round of “reform” failed.

First time I’ve agreed with your use of scare quotes. The original reform was inadequate. Noneconomic damages was capped EXCEPT for a number of cases, which basically rendered it useless. The “reform” the state medical association wanted was not delivered, the “reform” they got was inadequate, the Missouri medical association said it at the time.

The REFORM Missouri docs wanted, and apparently got this time, was a hard cap. Looks like they also got a limit on venue shopping, joint/several liability, collateral source, among other changes.

http://msma.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/msmaorg/htmlos.cgi/003169.5.2288874789915668050

Here are just some of the highlights:

# Limits venue in tort actions to the county where the plaintiff was first injured

# Caps non-economic damages at $350,000, with no annual inflator

# Fixes the Scott decision which allowed multiple non-economic damage caps

# Allows joint and several liability only if a defendant is 51% or greater at fault

# Requires a court to dismiss any case for which the plaintiff cannot produce an affidavit of merit. The expert that claims the case has merit must be identified and must practice the same profession and substantially the same specialty as the defendant

# Makes benevolent gestures inadmissible in court

# Limits punitive damages to the greater of $500,000 or five times the amount of the judgment

# Modifies the collateral source rule to allow the discovery of amounts actually paid (in contrast to amounts billed) for a plaintiff’s medical treatment

# Creates civil immunity for physicians that volunteer services at free health clinics

If the enviornment was so profitable, why did the insurers leave?

Two sites (including one PDF report) provide additional insight into the issue of med mal & tort reform.

From the CBO http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=4968&sequence=0
there seems to be no conclusive evidence that tort reform that caps general damages will have any significant effect on med mal losses, and in turn, the premiums charged. One truth that echo’s throughout is the factoring of legal expenses associated with defending suits.

The other reference from the Insurance Institute http://www.iii.org/media/hottopics/insurance/medicalmal/whitepaper/ has a PDF that sheds additional insight into the issues of med mal & tort reform. Note that less than half the payouts for med mal suits ends up in the litigants pocket, and less than a quarter of the payout falls under general damages (pain & suffering).

If one presumes that tort reform will lead to a 50% reduction in payout for general damages, (admittedly, 50% is an exaggerated figure), the net reduction in claims would be estimated at 12%. With overall claims increasing at 8%+ annually the net reduction in premiums would be 4% and that reduction would be only for the first year caps were instituted.

Granted, this is an oversimplified math assumption but it is logical and follows empirical data.

Med mal is an issue, and it has the effect of not only driving up the overall cost of health care, but rationing the availability as well. Tort reform is needed, but instilling caps is only a bandaid.