Insurance Reform: The Serious Medical Crisis is Caused by Skyrocketing Malpractice Insurance Fees, So Don't Let Insurance Firms Pit Doctors Against Patients
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
December 10, 2002

By Lauren Townsend, executive director of Citizens for Consumer Justice

Insurance. It's both necessary and at the same time the bane of our existence. And it's everywhere. If we own a house, rent an apartment, drive a car, need health care or have a profession that could -- if we make a mistake -- impact the lives of others, we need insurance, yet we lose our shirts paying for it.

During this angst-filled time of insolvencies, pension and job losses, and a health-care crisis, America is waking up. We're yawning and stretching and scratching our heads and realizing that corporate shenanigans and greed must be stopped. Our angst has made some politicians listen. There are a number of corporate-accountability and pension-protection measures that are being introduced and debated in our state Legislature and in Congress.

. . .

Earlier this fall we sent, as part of Americans for Insurance Reform, a follow-up letter to Pennsylvania's insurance commissioner because our July letter went unanswered. In our correspondence, we again urged her to: regulate excessive pricing; advise Pennsylvania legislators that the solution to prevent shock rate increases is insurance reform, not tort reform; freeze particularly stressed rates until the examination of prices and remarkable jumps in loss reserves can be fully analyzed; require that risks with poorer experience pay more than good risks in lines of insurance in which such methods are not in use today. In addition, we asked her to require all medical malpractice insurers to offer "good" doctors -- who are the vast majority -- the lowest rate.

For a copy of the complete article, contact AIR.