Malpractice suit hoax revived

The radical right generated much clatter in the early '90s about a problem that by and large did not exist: frivolous medical malpractice suits.

There were a few very isolated bogus suits here and there, but certainly no national epidemic. It was a bit like Reagan's made-up stories about welfare recipients buying new Cadillacs.

The purpose of this hoax was clear: It was pumped up to protect well-heeled medical corporations - not your family doctor. This campaign was bankrolled by Big Pharma, insurers, and other major corporations.

America's political leadership was highly compliant in soothing right-wing cries about frivolous suits. Much stricter limits were placed on malpractice awards. The Last Word's first criticism of the Clinton regime was over its proposal to outlaw malpractice suits entirely. (Do any of you seriously think Clinton was a liberal President?)

Even after patients' rights to collect full damages was gutted, the right-wing plen-T-plaint about frivolous suits has now been revived.

With health care reform in the works, former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle now boasts, "Tort reform is going to be on the table."

Got that? Bush's impeachment was off the table, but crimping injured consumers' rights to collect malpractice damages is on the table.

Not surprisingly, this is the same Tom Daschle who couldn't even keep the Senate in Democratic hands despite the most mind-numbing Republican failures in the party's history.

It's not as if the Obama administration truly wants to gut our ability to sue even more than it's already been gutted. It's just that the administration thinks it's necessary as a compromise with the medical industry.

But make no mistake about it: If malpractice suits are further limited, we can kiss real health care reform goodbye.

That's not reform. Every country that has a real public medical system (which includes every industrialized nation except America) has a system of accountability for bad physicians. In most countries, there are almost no limits on the right of injured patients to sue.

Never compromise with interests as greedy and coldhearted as America's medical corporations. I'm talking about companies like the insurer that allowed a teenage girl to die before approving coverage of life-saving treatment.

Ever hear the saying "You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist"?

Luckily, Obama hasn't flatly supported a cap on jury awards in malpractice suits - in contrast to Bush, who embraced every policy that harmed consumers.

There's an excess of medical lawsuits alright. But not malpractice suits filed by patients. I'm referring to suits filed against patients by hospitals and other corporations.

Our local paper used to list all the legal filings in some nearby counties, and an amazingly high number of them were filed by hospitals against individuals - almost never the other way around.

If you want to rein in health care costs, we should start by severely limiting providers' power to sue patients.

(Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/06/15/politics/politicalhotsheet/entry5088733.shtml;
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/health/policy/15health.html)