Our Opinion: Girl's Death May Dim View of Tort Reform
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
March 2, 2003


In family snapshots, Jesica Santillan looks cheerful, upbeat, even healthy, underlining the tragedy of her death. The 17-year-old suffered from "restrictive cardiomyopathy," which enlarges the heart and weakens the lungs.

Jesica's one fragile hope for recovery --- a heart-lung transplant --- was doomed by an extraordinary mistake in the operating room at Duke University Medical Center. Surgeons performed a second transplant, but it was too late to save her. What must those days have been like for Jesica's family?

Yet, Jesica's tortured final days may have an unexpected legacy: The blood-type mix-up that hastened her death seems to have slowed the tort reform juggernaut in Congress. While that may not stanch her family's grief, it is a silver lining of sorts.

…

What physicians are wrong about is the cause [of soaring medical malpractice premiums]. The data about medical malpractice do not show that insurers have been soaked. In fact, only one in eight malpractice victims ever files a claim for compensation, according to a 1991 Harvard study. That, despite the fact that an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 patients die every year as a result of medical errors.

According to Americans for Insurance Reform, the average medical malpractice insurance payout, over the last decade or so, was $28,524 --- a far cry from the multimillion-dollar payouts of insurance industry mythology. (Many high jury awards are substantially cut on appeal.)

For a copy of the complete article, contact AIR.