SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
A Chilling AMA Resolution: What Happened to the Hippocratic Oath?
Jun 09, 2004
Unless cooler heads prevail, the American Medical Association is teetering on the brink of public ridicule, mockery and indignation. Resolution 202 has been introduced by Dr. J. Chris Hawk III from South Carolina to the AMA's Committee B. It is aimed directly at trial lawyers as patients.
This resolution sets a new record for loss of sensitivity toward the tens of thousands of patients who die every year due to the gross negligence or incompetence called medical malpractice. This proposed resolution reflects the AMA's disappointment that the doctor's lobby has not adequately torpedoed the legal rights of these innocent plaintiffs in court. So it recommends major legal "surgery" that should turn the stomachs of more conscientious ethical and competent physicians than just gastroenterologists.
Here are the chilling words:
"RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association notify physicians that, except in emergencies and except as otherwise required by law or other professional regulation, it is not unethical to refuse care to plaintiffs' attorneys and their spouses."
Well at least the third generation Hawk left out the children.
The chilling explanation by Dr. Hawk for this proposed resolution is that lawsuits against medical-practice mayhem raise malpractice insurance premiums "forcing physicians to reduce their scope of practice, relocate, and retire early." Therefore, he concludes, trial attorneys should be given "the opportunity to experience the access problems caused by the professional liability crisis," [and] then "perhaps they would be willing to help change the system."
The main problem with this sadistic sequence of illogic is that it is false. The insurance companies are gouging the physicians by creating a phony crisis and playing off the natural desire of physicians never to be sued. Take all the premiums paid by doctors to insurance companies for malpractice coverage and divide the sum by all the practicing physicians. The premium would be about $10,000 a year -- a third of what they pay an experienced receptionist in their offices.
Regulating insurance premiums to prevent over-classification of specialists (which jack up rates), promoting experience loss rating (so that the fewer bad doctors pay more than the competent doctors) and stiffening regulation by state licensing boards to focus on the chronically harmful physicians would help reduce the damage to innocent patients.
Five percent of physicians account for about fifty percent of filed medical malpractice lawsuits. The total amount paid out in verdicts and settlements in all malpractice lawsuits is between $5 and $6 billion -- less than the amount spent just on dog food in this country. Only ten percent of medical malpractice victims even file a claim
Yet according to the Harvard School of Public Health Physicians, 80,000 Americans die every year from medical negligence or worse just in hospitals alone. Hundreds of thousands are significantly injured. By comparison with the insurance premiums paid, one of the Harvard physicians estimated the cost of medical malpractice casualties to be over $60 billion a year.
Dr. Hawk III's narrow frame of reference must have precluded him from reading the data and studies that contradict his precipitous attempt to embrace the AMA with a sordid display of unethical recommendations. He should log onto the websites Citizen.org and Centerjd.org for his enlightenment (the web sites include data countering the allegation that doctors are abandoning their practice).
It would be nice to refer him to an AMA website on medical malpractice and what his organization is doing about this preventable violence. But there is none. The AMA is oblivious, showing no interest in this nationwide tragedy.
Dr. Hawk III's proposed resolution goes to Committee B and, if approved, will go to the American Medical Association's House of Delegates for deliberation. Let Americans see how out of touch the AMA is with reality and how subservient to the insurance industry they continue to be.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of "The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future" (2012). His new book is, "Wrecking America: How Trump's Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All" (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).
Unless cooler heads prevail, the American Medical Association is teetering on the brink of public ridicule, mockery and indignation. Resolution 202 has been introduced by Dr. J. Chris Hawk III from South Carolina to the AMA's Committee B. It is aimed directly at trial lawyers as patients.
This resolution sets a new record for loss of sensitivity toward the tens of thousands of patients who die every year due to the gross negligence or incompetence called medical malpractice. This proposed resolution reflects the AMA's disappointment that the doctor's lobby has not adequately torpedoed the legal rights of these innocent plaintiffs in court. So it recommends major legal "surgery" that should turn the stomachs of more conscientious ethical and competent physicians than just gastroenterologists.
Here are the chilling words:
"RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association notify physicians that, except in emergencies and except as otherwise required by law or other professional regulation, it is not unethical to refuse care to plaintiffs' attorneys and their spouses."
Well at least the third generation Hawk left out the children.
The chilling explanation by Dr. Hawk for this proposed resolution is that lawsuits against medical-practice mayhem raise malpractice insurance premiums "forcing physicians to reduce their scope of practice, relocate, and retire early." Therefore, he concludes, trial attorneys should be given "the opportunity to experience the access problems caused by the professional liability crisis," [and] then "perhaps they would be willing to help change the system."
The main problem with this sadistic sequence of illogic is that it is false. The insurance companies are gouging the physicians by creating a phony crisis and playing off the natural desire of physicians never to be sued. Take all the premiums paid by doctors to insurance companies for malpractice coverage and divide the sum by all the practicing physicians. The premium would be about $10,000 a year -- a third of what they pay an experienced receptionist in their offices.
Regulating insurance premiums to prevent over-classification of specialists (which jack up rates), promoting experience loss rating (so that the fewer bad doctors pay more than the competent doctors) and stiffening regulation by state licensing boards to focus on the chronically harmful physicians would help reduce the damage to innocent patients.
Five percent of physicians account for about fifty percent of filed medical malpractice lawsuits. The total amount paid out in verdicts and settlements in all malpractice lawsuits is between $5 and $6 billion -- less than the amount spent just on dog food in this country. Only ten percent of medical malpractice victims even file a claim
Yet according to the Harvard School of Public Health Physicians, 80,000 Americans die every year from medical negligence or worse just in hospitals alone. Hundreds of thousands are significantly injured. By comparison with the insurance premiums paid, one of the Harvard physicians estimated the cost of medical malpractice casualties to be over $60 billion a year.
Dr. Hawk III's narrow frame of reference must have precluded him from reading the data and studies that contradict his precipitous attempt to embrace the AMA with a sordid display of unethical recommendations. He should log onto the websites Citizen.org and Centerjd.org for his enlightenment (the web sites include data countering the allegation that doctors are abandoning their practice).
It would be nice to refer him to an AMA website on medical malpractice and what his organization is doing about this preventable violence. But there is none. The AMA is oblivious, showing no interest in this nationwide tragedy.
Dr. Hawk III's proposed resolution goes to Committee B and, if approved, will go to the American Medical Association's House of Delegates for deliberation. Let Americans see how out of touch the AMA is with reality and how subservient to the insurance industry they continue to be.
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate and the author of "The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future" (2012). His new book is, "Wrecking America: How Trump's Lies and Lawbreaking Betray All" (2020, co-authored with Mark Green).
Unless cooler heads prevail, the American Medical Association is teetering on the brink of public ridicule, mockery and indignation. Resolution 202 has been introduced by Dr. J. Chris Hawk III from South Carolina to the AMA's Committee B. It is aimed directly at trial lawyers as patients.
This resolution sets a new record for loss of sensitivity toward the tens of thousands of patients who die every year due to the gross negligence or incompetence called medical malpractice. This proposed resolution reflects the AMA's disappointment that the doctor's lobby has not adequately torpedoed the legal rights of these innocent plaintiffs in court. So it recommends major legal "surgery" that should turn the stomachs of more conscientious ethical and competent physicians than just gastroenterologists.
Here are the chilling words:
"RESOLVED, That our American Medical Association notify physicians that, except in emergencies and except as otherwise required by law or other professional regulation, it is not unethical to refuse care to plaintiffs' attorneys and their spouses."
Well at least the third generation Hawk left out the children.
The chilling explanation by Dr. Hawk for this proposed resolution is that lawsuits against medical-practice mayhem raise malpractice insurance premiums "forcing physicians to reduce their scope of practice, relocate, and retire early." Therefore, he concludes, trial attorneys should be given "the opportunity to experience the access problems caused by the professional liability crisis," [and] then "perhaps they would be willing to help change the system."
The main problem with this sadistic sequence of illogic is that it is false. The insurance companies are gouging the physicians by creating a phony crisis and playing off the natural desire of physicians never to be sued. Take all the premiums paid by doctors to insurance companies for malpractice coverage and divide the sum by all the practicing physicians. The premium would be about $10,000 a year -- a third of what they pay an experienced receptionist in their offices.
Regulating insurance premiums to prevent over-classification of specialists (which jack up rates), promoting experience loss rating (so that the fewer bad doctors pay more than the competent doctors) and stiffening regulation by state licensing boards to focus on the chronically harmful physicians would help reduce the damage to innocent patients.
Five percent of physicians account for about fifty percent of filed medical malpractice lawsuits. The total amount paid out in verdicts and settlements in all malpractice lawsuits is between $5 and $6 billion -- less than the amount spent just on dog food in this country. Only ten percent of medical malpractice victims even file a claim
Yet according to the Harvard School of Public Health Physicians, 80,000 Americans die every year from medical negligence or worse just in hospitals alone. Hundreds of thousands are significantly injured. By comparison with the insurance premiums paid, one of the Harvard physicians estimated the cost of medical malpractice casualties to be over $60 billion a year.
Dr. Hawk III's narrow frame of reference must have precluded him from reading the data and studies that contradict his precipitous attempt to embrace the AMA with a sordid display of unethical recommendations. He should log onto the websites Citizen.org and Centerjd.org for his enlightenment (the web sites include data countering the allegation that doctors are abandoning their practice).
It would be nice to refer him to an AMA website on medical malpractice and what his organization is doing about this preventable violence. But there is none. The AMA is oblivious, showing no interest in this nationwide tragedy.
Dr. Hawk III's proposed resolution goes to Committee B and, if approved, will go to the American Medical Association's House of Delegates for deliberation. Let Americans see how out of touch the AMA is with reality and how subservient to the insurance industry they continue to be.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.