Malpractice Lawsuit Caps

I agree with the Jan. 10 editorial, “Misdirection on Malpractice.” There are two other issues that need national discourse: the responsibility of patients to understand reasonable risks in their medical treatment and the ethical responsibility of doctors and hospitals to evaluate colleagues who have too many unacceptable outcomes -- those outside reasonable risk or too many bad outcomes within what may be ordinarily acceptable.

This should not come down to money; this has to be about good medical care and protecting the rights of patients and doctors.

Pamela Fiore

Flemington, N.J.

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Contrary to the Jan. 10 editorial, experience and research demonstrate that California’s medical liability law, known as MICRA, is fair -- to patients and physicians. Under the law, patients, not lawyers, receive a greater share of a jury award than they would in states without reforms.

Patients in California have full access to the courtroom and can recover millions in economic damages, plus an additional quarter-million dollars for pain and suffering.

If patients are harmed by negligence, they should be fully and fairly compensated. In California, they are.

California’s law also ensures that physicians’ insurance premiums rise at moderate levels. A Los Angeles OB-GYN pays about $63,000 per year, but in such non-MICRA states as Pennsylvania and Illinois, an OB-GYN pays $147,000 to $161,000. In crisis states, high-risk specialists are restricting services, retiring early or relocating to other states.

The AMA strongly supports California’s law as a model for federal reform for one simple reason: It works. It protects patients’ access to care and injects some common sense into our nation’s legal system. All Americans should be so lucky as to live under California-style reforms.

John C. Nelson MD, MPH

President, American

Medical Assn., Chicago

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The Times again demonstrates its ignorance regarding the medical malpractice situation. What it doesn’t want to understand is that adverse outcomes in medicine are rarely due to malpractice. Yet an adverse outcome is essential for lawyers to win a case. The higher the cap, the more lawyers will gravitate toward adverse-outcome cases. Whether malpractice has actually occurred is irrelevant to them. It’s all about the money.

Kris Hardeman

Fullerton

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Re “Administration Expands Anti-Lawsuit Push,” Jan. 9: It’s heartwarming to see the president doing what this “new” GOP does best -- shielding wealthy corporations from accountability while ensuring that common citizens will never get their day in court.

Daniel Koenig

Placentia

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In “Bush Hammers Medical Malpractice Suits” (Jan. 6), the Assn. of Trial Lawyers of America makes the statement that caps on noneconomic damages hurt children and women who don’t have jobs. This misrepresents the situation. Doctors fully expect that a person who has suffered from true negligence should receive financial compensation for all medical expenses and any future expenses that may arise, including estimations of future earnings. But opportunistic lawyers who make millions of dollars suing doctors are threatened by the potential loss of income. Protecting their own interests by drawing on public sympathy for their clients is the ultimate betrayal of the public good.

Clearly, the trial lawyers have a credibility gap that is growing larger daily. Not only have they exploited medicine, but just about every other area of human affairs as well. President Bush is right in making this a federal issue.

Edward J. Volpintesta MD

Bethel, Conn.

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Bush failed to mention that the public financial records of insurance companies indicate that in any year prior to raising insurance premiums, the insurance companies posted poor earnings on their investments. In fact, rising premiums are not a direct result of malpractice claims or awards but of unwise investment choices.

Again, this president will tell the people what he wants them to hear to accomplish his goals. Told often enough, it becomes truth to the millions of Americans who cannot think, read, research or form their own opinion on a matter outside the box that this administration has so carefully crafted around them.

Karen Wiechman

Los Angeles