By Mary Alice McLarty, Special to CNN
updated 8:53 AM EDT, Fri October 12, 2012
Editor's note: Mary
Alice McLarty is president of the American
Association for Justice and a partner in McLarty Pope LLP in Dallas.
She practices personal injury and civil trial law, concentrating on
catastrophic injury cases.
(CNN) -- We are facing a medical
malpractice crisis in our country.
More than 98,000 people
die every year because of preventable medical errors. That is
equivalent to two 737s crashing every day for a whole year. Preventable medical
errors are the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and cost our
country $29 billion a year.
Lawsuits are only a symptom of the disease. The
root of the medical malpractice problem is medical malpractice itself.
The civil justice system gives families of patients
who have died or have been injured by medical negligence an avenue to seek
accountability. It also provides an incentive to health care providers to
improve patient care. Removing that accountability and incentive leaves people
at risk for more injures from negligent care.
The calls
for medical malpractice reform are misguided because they center on stripping
away patients' rights when they should be focused on preventing the deaths and
injuries from occurring in the first place.
In his October 5 piece,
Dr. Anthony Youn states that the American Association for Justice "is
opposed to malpractice tort reform."
We absolutely are. Not just because it violates the
Constitution and is an infringement on patients' rights but, more important,
because when no one is
accountable, no one is safe.
Let's use my home state of Texas to see how
eliminating the rights of patients -- or "tort reform" -- does not
work for patients or doctors, or consumers.
In 2003, Texas passed Proposition 12, which
severely limited the rights of patients by placing a $250,000 cap on
non-economic damages and giving extensive immunity to emergency room doctors.
Children, stay-at-home moms and the elderly have
been disproportionately impacted by this law because often they do not have
substantial economic losses (i.e., lost wages or salary) from medical injuries,
but their quality of life has been substantially, even permanently, diminished.
If limiting injured patients' rights actually
reduced unnecessary tests and costs, Texas should have significantly lower
health care costs than other states. But Texas has some of the highest health
care costs and highest number of uninsured people in the country.
In fact, health care costs in Texas have increased
at a higher rate than anywhere else in the country, according to a study
from the University of Illinois and the University of Texas.
Not only has the cost of health care not decreased,
but the quality of care has not improved, either. In July 2011, the federal Agency for Health Care Research
and Quality ranked Texas health
care the worst in the nation.
Lastly, one of the biggest myths of all is that doctors have
flocked to Texas because of the cap on damages. It is simply not
true. The number of practicing physicians in Texas was actually increasing at a
faster rate before this law was passed.
This applies
nationwide. The Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget
Office have both said that taking away patients' rights will not significantly
lower health care costs and found no evidence of doctors running unnecessary
tests to avoid lawsuits, or "defensive medicine."
Patients will not see the savings and neither will
doctors. The Center for
Progressive Reform, a regulatory think tank, found that
"restricting lawsuits might save doctors a negligible amount on
malpractice premiums but the vast majority of any savings will most certainly
line the pockets of the insurance companies demanding these restrictions."
This is
little more than a handout to medical malpractice insurers whose average profit
margin is twice as high as
50 of the most profitable Fortune 500 companies (PDF).
Eliminating patients' rights is not the answer to
our nation's health care problems. Instead, we must focus on patient safety
efforts. That will undoubtedly lower costs, prevent lawsuits and save
Americans' lives each year.
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