State Looks at Caps on Malpractice
Greenville News (Greenville, SC)
March 8, 2003

Billy Sloan probably would have been graduating from college this year.

Maybe he'd have had a serious girlfriend or a job he loved. But Billy Sloan died of a ruptured appendix 10 years ago when he was 11.

His parents, Dave and Valerie, won $1.5 million from a Spartanburg County jury after suing the doctors who misdiagnosed his illness.

They, like thousands of others, are caught in the middle of a nationwide debate over medical malpractice, the large awards that juries sometimes give and the premiums that insurance companies charge doctors.

Legislation that would limit the amount of such awards was introduced in the South Carolina General Assembly last week.

…

Public Citizen and Americans for Insurance Reform, a coalition of more than 100 independent consumer and public interest groups, said studies and government reports show premiums have increased across all insurance lines, not just malpractice.

Insurers keep premiums for some customers artificially low to attract business and amass investment capital, and then lose the money in the stock market. Some insurers then stop offering malpractice insurance, leaving the remaining companies to assume greater risk.

"Insurers, whose own investment actions have made insurance unaffordable and unavailable, are blaming others for their own mismanagement by manufacturing a crisis for surgeons and other doctors that simply should not exist," said J. Robert Hunter, of the Consumer Federation of America and former Texas insurance commissioner.

For a copy of the complete article, contact AIR.