Springfield Injury Law Blog : Springfield Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Jason Krebs Law Firm : Branson, Tri-Lakes, Missouri: car accident, personal injury, food poisoning, medical malpractice, wrongful death

Another study, this one by the The Center for Justice and Democracy, that provides actual empirical evidence (as opposed to partisan rhetoric) what many have argued for some time: that limiting injured patients’ access to the courthouse has no real effect on overall health costs. Here is the full report.  It is long, but I urge everyone to read this to educate themselves about the issue as opposed to listing to "pundits" on TV or talk radio.

Here are the bullet points from the report:

• Medical malpractice premiums, inflation-adjusted, are nearly the lowest they have been
in 30 years.

• Medical malpractice claims, inflation-adjusted, are dropping significantly, down 45
percent since 2000.

• Medical malpractice premiums are less than one-half of one percent of the country’s
overall health care costs; medical malpractice claims are a mere one-fifth of one percent
of health care costs. In over 30 years, premiums and claims have never been greater than
1% of our nation’s health care costs.

• Medical malpractice insurer profits are higher than the rest of the property casualty
industry, which has been remarkably profitable over the last five years.

• The periodic premium spikes that doctors experience, as they did from 2002 until 2005,
are not related to claims but to the economic cycle of insurers and to drops in investment
income.

• Many states that have resisted enacting severe restrictions on injured patients’ legal rights
experienced rate changes (i.e., premium increases or decreases for doctors) similar to
those in states that enacted severe restrictions on patients’ rights, i.e., there is no
correlation between “tort reform” and insurance rates for doctors.

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As part of the ongoing debate about the quality and availability of health care to all Americans, medical malpractice lawsuits are often blamed as the leading culprit of the crisis or as the Public Citizen in this fantastic report refers to the argument as the "bogeyman".  

This is a fairly lengthy report, but it is an easy read and fascinating. It provides hard evidence from numerous actual sources that debunk the myth that medical malpractice lawyers are the cause of spiraling health care costs.  I urge everyone to read this and share it with their friends and family,

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No doubt that sometimes it is too much.  I don't have a Twitter account ( from the Twitter site--Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? in 140 characters or less )  but I think it is an interesting idea, however this may be a little over the top.  CNN had a recent article about a surgeons twittering during surgery.  

"That's right -- last week, for the second known time, surgeons Twittered a surgery by using social-networking site Twitter to give short real-time updates about the procedure."

I hope your surgeon is more concerned about the task at hand than trying to broaden their business but I guess "committing malpractice" is less than 140 characters.

Don't worry  The Krebs Law Firm LLC will not be twittering or blogging while in court.

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Here is as a succinct discussion of the myth of medical malpractice reform as you will find written as a response to a Wall Street Journal  editorial.  The response was written by New York personal injury attorney Eric Dinnocenzo. I highly suggest that you read the reports he links to as well such as the Slate and  Dartmouth study. They are eye opening and informative.

Unfortunately many of these same myths were used to pass tort reform in Missouri.  In August 2005 Missouri Tort Reform went into affect and substantially limited the rights of injury victims throughout the state. There were numerous items in the Missouri Tort Reform statutes but one of the most devastating "reforms" state that you or your families' non-economic damages such as pain and suffering are limited or "caped" at $350,000. This cap is not adjusted for inflation as the previous cap was.  

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