Myth Busters!
March 16, 2010
The Great Hoax: Tort Reform, Better Healthcare
Myth No. 1: Rising healthcare costs can be tied to malpractice claims
According to the most reliable of sources, the projected costs of healthcare spending in 2009 were approximately $2.5 trillion – with a T. Of that, even including the costs of insurance premiums – figures that other studies have conclusively shown to be inflated without being tied to actual claims experience – the amount assignable to malpractice litigation is a mere 2 percent of the total.
The claim of inflated expenses due to so called defensive medicine, tests designed to get at the root of a problem and ensure for the patient as accurate a diagnosis as possible, are immeasurable and cannot be properly brought into the discussion without resorting to wholesale speculation.
Myth No. 2: Madison County-Judicial Hellhole
Reality sometimes intrudes on fantasy, and this is one sure case. Contrary to the popularly held belief, the Courts of Madison County have been among the most hostile to malpractice Plaintiffs in the State of Illinois. Case filings are down dramatically, even while announcements of new arrivals of physicians, the opening of hospital wings and the expansion of oft times competing specialty services fill the newspapers.
Truth be told, with the current litigation climate and juror attitude, no place is more hospitable to the negligent hospital or the clumsy surgeon than the Courts found in Edwardsville.
Myth No. 3: Malpractice premiums can be related to claims filed
Doctors in the Metro East have been consistently abused by their own captive insurance carrier, the Illinois State Medical Insurance Exchange – (ISMIE). Rates were set without regulation, and were naturally raised without remorse. Rather than focus on the real culprit, the strawman of the “frivolous lawsuit” – truly a myth given the oppressive costs involved for any such case – was created to deflect attention.
US Chamber of Commerce Is At It Again.
January 7, 2010
the US Chamber of Commerce has consistently engaged in disseminating false information to the masses. At some point they should stop doing that.
U.S. Chamber: More Lawsuit Malarkey
A spokesman for the Chamber, Mark Szymanski, told us the ad began airing “nationally” in late December and will continue to air until the end of January. But he would not disclose the amount of money the Chamber Institute for Legal Reform is spending on the ad.
Szymanski said the source for the ad’s claim is an October 2005 study, “Impact of Litigation on Small Businesses,” conducted for the Small Business Administration by Klemm Analysis Group Inc. of Washington, D.C. But that report says nothing of the sort. In fact, it found that less than 15 percent of federal lawsuits target any business entity at all, and that roughly half of those, or fewer, involved small businesses.
This is not the first time we’ve caught the Chamber making an inflated claim about the impact of lawsuits.
