| NEW
YORK - June 18 - Joanne Doroshow, executive director of the non-profit consumer
group Center for Justice & Democracy, called the American Medical Association
a “shameful organization that has chosen to lie down with a profiteering
and corrupt insurance industry instead of protecting patients.” Doroshow
said, “The AMA yesterday issued a so-called ‘study’ -- mainly
a survey of state medical societies -- intended to hype its campaign to restrict
patients’ rights to sue malpracticing doctors and hospitals, arguing that
tort laws are forcing insurers to price-gouge doctors. This is despite the conclusions
of every credible, independent body which has studied this issue, finding that
interest rates, the economy and the economic cycle of the insurance industry are
the cause of severe sudden rate increases for doctors, irrespective of tort limits
imposed in a particular state.”
Moreover, said Doroshow, “The AMA has the nerve to argue that only a
handful of states have enacted severe tort restrictions in medical malpractice
cases and only these states, like California, are not experiencing an insurance
crisis. This is completely false. Some 46 states enacted often severe restrictions
on patients’ rights in the mid-1980s, after being told by lobbyists that
such laws would bring down rates. They did not work, which is why we are in this
situation today.” The full list can be found at http://centerjd.org/free/Medmallist.pdf.
“Enactment of laws that restrict injured patients’ rights to go
to court have not lowered insurance costs or rates,” said Doroshow. “The
Center for Justice & Democracy issued the definitive study on this topic in
1999 -- two years before the current ‘crisis’ hit. Premium Deceit
-- the Failure of “Tort Reform” to Cut Insurance Prices was the first-ever
look at 14 years of insurance price trends in every state plus the District of
Columbia. The study found that over this period, states with little or no tort
law restrictions experienced approximately the same changes in insurance rates
as those states that have enacted severe restrictions on victims’ rights.”
In direct response to Premium Deceit at the time of its release, Sherman Joyce,
president of the American Tort Reform Association, said, “We wouldn’t
tell you or anyone that the reason to pass tort reform would be to reduce insurance
rates.” (Liability Week, July 19, 1999). ATRA’s general counsel, Victor
Schwartz, said, “[M]any tort reform advocates do not contend that restricting
litigation will lower insurance rates, and ‘I’ve never said that in
30 years.’” (Liability Week, July 19, 1999). And this year, the American
Insurance Association said, “Insurers never promised that tort reform would
achieve specific premium savings.”
According to Doroshow, “ ‘Tort reform’ has failed and will
fail again to reduce rates, let alone having terrible consequences for many innocent
people.”
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