Tort Changes Unlikely to Benefit Unhappy Physicians
Charleston Gazette
January 10, 2003

Gov. Bob Wise, House Speaker Bob Kiss and all the other leaders out there ready to pacify the state's angry doctors by giving them just about all the tort reform the doctors have asked for are in on a dirty little secret: None of the proposals they or doctors have offered will make the least bit of difference in doctors' medical malpractice premiums.

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The increase in malpractice insurance premiums is a crisis, but the cause is not a lawsuit-happy population, despite doctors' continued irrational insistence that it is. A recent study by Americans for Insurance Reform, using certified data from A.M. Best, found that jury verdicts and settlements have tracked medical inflation almost exactly.

Premiums, on the other hand, tend to track changes in the economy. When the economy and stock market are doing well, premiums don't rise as much. When the economy tanks and insurance companies don't do as well on their investments, premiums go through the roof.

Insurance companies want tort reform because it will allow them to better predict their costs of doing business. Doctors want tort reform, I believe, because they are offended by the very notion that anyone would sue them for malpractice.

I shouldn't paint with too broad a brush, I suppose, but I've seen too many doctors prattle on about "bad outcomes" when they were talking, in reality, about horrible, negligent mistakes.

For a copy of the complete article, contact AIR.