Lawsuit Fears Fuel Strikes by Surgeons
Washington Times
January 6, 2003

Medical malpractice lawsuits continue to cause anxiety among the nation's surgeons, in some cases leading to strikes such as the current one in West Virginia, although solutions remain elusive because insurance issues vary from state to state.

"Insurance is a bastion of states' rights. You've got 50 different sets of regulations, and it's difficult for any one insurance company to meet all those regulations," said Barry Swicker, a New York City broker who specializes in finding insurers for "non-standard" doctors who have weathered tough lawsuits or had disciplinary problems.

One of the biggest national insurers was the St. Paul Cos., which covered 9 percent of the nation's doctors when it quit the business outright a year ago.

"In 2001 alone, we lost $1 billion on this business even though we had been getting rate increases," St. Paul spokesman Pat Hirigoyen said yesterday. That was the fifth year in a row the company claimed losses on malpractice policies.

. . .

A New York interest group called Americans for Insurance Reform (AIR) rejects the arguments of the insurance industry and offers alternative explanations for the standoff, saying premiums in the past 30 years were not founded on valid actuarial factors.

"Medical malpractice payouts have directly tracked the rate of medical inflation and, second, over the same period, insurance premium rates have not tracked payouts at all such as jury verdicts, settlements, etc., but instead directly follow the ups and downs of the economy," said a study summary furnished yesterday by AIR spokeswoman [Joanne Doroshow].

For a copy of the complete article, contact AIR.