Waking Up Costs

House Bill Would Fund Special Health Courts

Clark Venable — Wed, 20 Apr 2005 16:42:31 GMT

"Known as the Medical Liability Procedural Reform Act of 2005, HR 1546 would authorize grants to as many as seven states to establish special health courts to restore reliability to medical justice. The hallmark of the courts would be full-time judges with health care expertise, whose sole focus would be on addressing medical malpractice cases. Each participating state would be required to report on the effectiveness of the health courts, and the U.S. Attorney General would be required to hire a research organization to evaluate them."

Via [Common Good]

More than 80 Prominent Leaders Endorse Special Health Courts

Clark Venable — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 00:22:59 GMT

Common Good has kicked off a national education campaign about special health care courts with a brochure titled An Urgent Call for Special Health Courts: America needs a reliable system of medical justice. (pdf also available).

I've posted about special health courts before here and support them in principle We have special courts for workman's compensation--we need special courts for malpractice issues. The proposal includes:

Full-time judges
Neutral experts
Speedy processing at lower cost
Schedule for non-economic damages
Liberalized standard for patient recovery

Tort System Costs

Clark Venable — Wed, 02 Feb 2005 14:43:13 GMT

I'm posting these data mainly so I'll be able to find them again at a later date, but others might find the numbers useful as well.

" The tort system now costs every man, woman, and child in America an average of $845 a year, almost 10 times the inflation-adjusted $91 per capita it cost in 1950. The $246 billion-a-year total comes to 2.2 percent of America's gross domestic product -- more than triple the 0.6 percent in the United Kingdom and more than double the 0.8 percent in Japan, France, and Canada. And as of 2002, only 22 percent of all tort costs went to compensate alleged victims' out-of-pocket losses; 24 percent went to pay for non-economic losses such as pain and suffering; 19 percent went to plaintiffs' lawyers; 14 percent went to defense costs; and 21 percent went to insurance overhead. "

I found this section in Better Justice: Bush's Missed Opportunity, which is quoting U.S. Tort Costs:2004 Update Trends and Findings on the Cost of the U.S. Tort System.

Pennsylvania and Medical Courts

Clark Venable — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 13:09:43 GMT

From Law.com: States Weigh Med-Mal Courts.

" "In Pennsylvania, a House bill was introduced in 2003 that would have created a Medical Professional Liability Court. The bill never made it out of committee.

"It was the source of a lot of discussions for the greater part of four or five months," said Mark Phenicie, the legislative counsel for the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association. "But it hasn't happened ... .We have the additional impediment here that all of the judges are elected. If I'm a judge, I probably wouldn't want to have to run in a partisan statewide campaign just to be in a malpractice court." " "

Like other malpractice reform proposals, it never made it 'out of committee' because legislators from the Philadelphia area (who represent the trial lawyer lobby) prevented it from going to the floor for a vote.

[Via PointOfLaw Forum]

Unreliable System Fails Doctors and Patients

Clark Venable — Thu, 09 Dec 2004 17:18:23 GMT

" "The Washington Post takes a detailed look at a single medical malpractice case--one that began when Dr. Kevin Kearney of Maryland's Eastern Shore urged an 18-year-old mother to have her baby without a Caesarean section. What followed was a complicated delivery resulting in permanent injuries to the child, and a multi-year legal battle, filled with dramatic moments that illustrate how an unreliable system can fail both doctors and patients." "

[Via MedWatch]