Tort Reform News

"Frivolous lawsuits" are "a problem that exists mostly in the minds of conservatives and the medical establishment ... defensive medicine accounts for about 2.9% of health care spending." Any tort reform that would eliminate defensive medicine "would likely create other costs, such as a rise in medical mistakes generated by the elimination of the oversight exercised by the court system."

"As for "frivolous lawsuits," defined as cases that should never have been brought at all, they're a lot rarer than most tort reform advocates admit. Studies have documented that the vast majority of them don't yield a payment to the plaintiff. The converse is a bigger problem — genuinely injured patients who can't get redress because the courthouse doors have been shut to them."

Click here to read the full column in the Los Angeles Times - September 20, 2014

"Let's find solutions together. Let's learn from the lawsuits and the innocent victims. Let's work to prevent the errors. It is always better to prevent harm than compensate for it. Prevent negligent harm to patients and residents and you've solved the problem on two fronts. You spend less in health care costs AND you reduce lawsuits because harm is reduced."

Click here to read the full column in the Louisville Courier-Journal - March 25, 2014

"It seems that every time researchers estimate how often a medical mistake contributes to a hospital patient's death, the numbers come out worse. ... the numbers may be much higher — between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death, the study says."

Click here to read the full study published in the Journal of Patient Safety - September 2013 - Volume 9 - Issue 3

"The decision is catastrophic for the antitrust laws, as well as for civil rights, consumer rights and many other statutory rights. The decision is an unmitigated disaster, replacing adhesive contracts for an idea of actual law. The drafters of the [Federal Arbitration Act] would not recognize what it has turned into."

Click here to read the complete blog post on the Public Justice website - June 20, 2013

"Thousands of patients a year leave the nation's operating rooms with surgical items in their bodies.... Yet 85 percent of hospitals have not adopted readily available technologies that all but eliminate the risk of leaving sponges in patients."

Article published in the Tennessean

Despite calls to action by patient advocates and the adoption of safety programs, there is no sign that the numbers of errors, injuries and deaths have improved. Why? Because those responsible for the delivery of health care have been unable to change how they do things.

Click here to read the full column published in The New York Times - February 19, 2013

"Ironically, a study from Americans for Insurance Reform in 2009 found that under Missouri's damages cap, medical malpractice rates actually went up 1 percent, while in neighboring Iowa, which has no damage cap, malpractice premiums dropped 6 percent. ... 'In Missouri the only clear impact has been a drop in the number of claims and lawsuits made and a more profitable malpractice insurance industry, while other indicators remain largely as they were before reform...' "

Click here to read the full article from the Huffington Post - October 18, 2012

Click here to read the entire study by Americans for Insurance Reform (PDF)

The Courier-Journal notes that a state senator introduced legislation infringing on the right to a jury trial in cases of nursing home abuse and neglect, and then called the bill for a vote in her committee before the assembled opponents were allowed to speak. In 2012, Kentucky nursing homes ranked first nationally in total federal fines levied, and "in serious nursing home deficiencies that threaten the safety of residents. ... Meanwhile, the nursing home business, dominated by large corporate chains, is booming, according to stock performance and CEO salaries, which average $3.3 million a year..."

Full editorial published in the Louisville Courier-Journal

In "one of the most rigorous efforts to collect data about patient safety since a landmark report in 1999 found that medical mistakes caused as many as 98,000 deaths and more than one million injuries a year in the United States," researchers "found that harm to patients was common and that the number of incidents did not decrease over time"

"The findings were a disappointment but not a surprise... Many of the problems were caused by the hospitals' failure to use measures that had been proved to avert mistakes and to prevent infections from devices like urinary catheters, ventilators and lines inserted into veins and arteries. "

Click here to read the full article from The New York Times - November 24, 2010

"A national report ... says the 2003 Texas law that limited damage awards in malpractice suits has caused health care spending to rise and has not significantly increased the number of doctors in Texas." (The full report is available at the link just below on this page.)

A study conducted by Public Citizen reveals that Texas' much-touted 2003 tort reform legislation caused lawsuits to plummet but did nothing to improve the delivery of health care, which actually worsened during the same period.

"What doctors want isn't reform, it is an exemption. And that's just not how we do things in the United States."

Click here to read the full column from the Houston Chronicle - November 22, 2009

"The research shows, overwhelmingly, that the real problem is too much malpractice, not too many malpractice lawsuits."

Click here to read the full story from The New York Times - July 11, 2009

A Massachusetts study found that, adjusting for inflation, medical malpractice insurance premiums actually decreased between 1990 and 2008, even though the American Medical Association has declared it a crisis state, debunking the claim that insurance premiums are driven by too many lawsuits.

Click here to read the full story from the Boston Globe - May 13, 2008

Washington Monthly debunks common myths from media reports about lawsuits and tort reform. "The plain fact is, most lawsuits are neither ridiculous nor lucrative. ... the awards are generally quite small and getting smaller."

Because of damage caps passed in California, many victims with legitimate cases can't get a lawyer to take their case.

Click here to read the full story from the Los Angeles Times - December 29, 2007

A respected journal of health care policy found no evidence of a connection between a supposed medical malpractice crisis and physicians leaving high-risk specialties.

Click here to read the full study from Health Affairs - May/June 2007

The growth of malpractice payments is less than previously thought. According to records kept by the insurance industry itself, medical malpractice payments add just $12 per person to the annual cost of health care in the United States, and that number has grown no faster than other increases in the cost of health care since 1991.

Click here to read the study - Jan./Jun. 2005

One of the catchphrases of tort reformers is "frivolous lawsuits" — a lawsuit that has no legal basis, or is so petty that the suit isn't justified. But what tort reformers don't tell you is that the legal system already has three safety mechanisms in place to prevent, dismiss and correct frivolous lawsuits.

Click here to read the full story - 2003

A primer on tort reform and how it results in more harm than good.
Click here to read the full story