Word: reformer
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...Angeles--based company has retreated to California, pulling out of the malpractice business in other states. Says Zuk: "We knew that there was a risk when you go into a state without tort reform"--limits placed on personal-injury lawsuits and damages. "We thought the rates were sufficient, so we went with it. Today I know what's going on around the country. I won't go into Texas, Florida or any of the states I pulled back from until there's some semblance of tort reform...
...plenty of company in his malpractice losses and in his zeal for reform. In 2001 medical-malpractice insurers paid out $1.53 in claims and expenses for each $1 in premiums they collected. The industry has lost a combined $8 billion since 1995, and its reserves for estimated future claims are underfunded by about $4.6 billion. So if insurers aren't profiting from higher premiums, who is? Zuk and his peers point to trial lawyers and frivolous claimants. Insurers are lobbying alongside doctors for caps on noneconomic damages (for pain and suffering), like the ones in California and 18 other states...
...everyone accepts that link. "In theory, tort reform would have an impact on premiums. In reality, that has not been the case," says Martin Weiss, chairman of Weiss Ratings, an independent insurance-rating agency in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. In a study published this week, Weiss Ratings found that in states without caps on noneconomic damages, median annual premiums for standard medical-malpractice coverage rose 36% between 1991 and 2002. But in states with caps, premiums rose even more--48%. In the two groups of states, median 2002 premiums were about the same. Weiss found nine states with flat...
...reform is going nowhere. Both sides in the debate, horns locked, have succeeded mainly in confusing the issues. Trial lawyers talk a lot about the "right to sue" when something goes wrong. But what about the right of doctors to a system of justice that reliably distinguishes between right and wrong? Meanwhile, the tort reform pushed by doctors is like a bandage on a mortal wound. Placing limits on discretionary "noneconomic" damages may stem today's bleeding and is certainly one element of controlling costs--$1 million to a plaintiff is $1 million less to take care of the rest...
Philip K. Howard, a lawyer, is the founder of Common Good, a legal-reform coalition www.cgood.org) His books include The Collapse of the Common Good and The Death of Common Sense