Op-Ed exposes the fraud of tort “reform”

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An excellent op-ed piece in today's Free Press lays out the myths and realities of the so-called tort reform movement. The piece, by Lars Lundeen, emonstrates the recurring reality that the tort “reform” movement is nothing more than an assault on the rights of injured patients, while offering no benefits to anyone but insurance carriers.

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Those opposed to real health care and health insurance reform appear to be flailing around to come up with alternative, real solutions to our health care crisis. With all the talk of death panels, government takeovers and rationing of care, now tort reform has been thrown into the mix in Congress.

So-called tort reform will do practically nothing to lower health care costs, and certainly will not fix our broken health care system. However, it will most definitely hurt innocent patients injured through no fault of their own. It appears that the effects of legislation on real people have somehow evaporated from the discussion.

It's worth reading the whole thing.

 

2 thoughts on “Op-Ed exposes the fraud of tort “reform””

  1. It is a common thread on the right wing.  It is as if this tort stuff is responsible for the irresponsible piracy of our insurance situation. I hear this all the time.

  2. Five Myths About Medical Negligence, American Association for Justice, their web site is http://www.justice.org

    MYTH #4: MALPRACTICE CLAIMS DRIVE UP DOCTORS’ PREMIUMS Empirical research has found that there is little correlation between malpractice payand malpractice premiums paid by doctors. Researchers at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) reported that, “increases in malpractice payments made on behalf of physicians do not seem to be the driving force behind increases in premiums.”15 Similarly, Americans for Insurance Reform (AIR) conducted an analysis of the relationshipbetween insurance payouts and premiums charged to doctors and found that, “[n]ot onwas there no ‘explosion’ in lawsuits, jury awards or any tort system costs to justify the astronomical premium increases that doctors have been charged in recent years. These rate increases were rather driven by the economic cycle of the insurnce industry, driven by declining interest rates and investments.”

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