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Sunday, December 14, 2003
It's a prescription that won't cure ills
Physicians seeking to cure their medical malpractice insurance woes have taken on a lousy bedside manner with the Legislature.
"You don't want to go home in November having not acted on this and try to run for re-election," says Tom Curry, executive director of the Washington State Medical Association, tells legislators. "This is the litmus test in '04."
"This" is a tort-limit tiara, the crown jewel of which is a $250,000 cap on awards for non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases, which failed in the Legislature last session.
The doctors are trotting out the same old case: Medical malpractice insurance rates are skyrocketing, making it difficult and in some cases impossible for physicians to remain in practice here. The culprit? Increasingly higher jury awards for non-economic -- often called "pain and suffering" -- damages, they say. (Washington law does not allow punitive damages.)
The independent agency Weiss Ratings reports that, "In theory, tort reform would have had an impact on premiums. In reality, that has not been the case."
Even if the case could be made for a causal relationship between non-economic damage awards and medical malpractice insurance rates, the Washington Supreme Court has, quite understandably, found caps on jury awards to be unconstitutional. Thus imposing the cap would require a constitutional amendment. Just getting it on the ballot would require two-thirds majorities in both houses of the Legislature. So threatening political extortion is a prescription for failure.
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