Who is Responsible for Malpractice Crisis? The Other Guy
Associated Press
February 6, 2003

The blame game reached a crescendo this week in the medical malpractice crisis as doctors stayed out of work and rallied for attention.

Doctors, lawyers, patient advocates and the malpractice insurance industry generally point the finger at one of the others as the cause of the crisis. But the reasons are many and complex, which makes it hard for the public to decide who to support.

"I'd be very skeptical about the ability of the public to really understand this issue because it is very complex and it is very hyped," said Paul Ginsburg, president of the Washington-based Center for Studying Health System Change.
The nonpartisan center is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of Plainsboro.

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Lawyers' groups blame the malpractice insurers.

"The New Jersey doctors' strike is just another in a string of politically motivated walkouts orchestrated by President Bush to help his friends in the insurance industry," Mary E. Alexander, president of the Association of Trial lawyers of America, said this week. "The president wants to make the malpractice insurance crisis a fight between doctors and lawyers, but the real problem is the fact that the big insurance companies control America's health-care system."

The consumer coalition Americans for Insurance Reform also says insurers are to blame, but because they keep rates low when the economy and their investment income is strong, then hike rates when the opposite is true.

For a copy of the complete article, contact AIR.