The Washington Times editorialized today against trial lawyers by saying that there should be caps for pain and suffering awards in medical malpractice suits as well as limits on attorney's fees.
The Times takes for gospel the following statistics provided by a self-interested physician's group: half of all neurosurgeons, one-third of all orthopedic surgeons, one-third of all emergency room physicians and one-third of all trauma physicians are sued each year. These statistics are bogus and are not substantiated by any facts. Yet The Times relies on them anyway. Talk about malpractice!
Assuming these bogus statistics are true, if there are so many lawsuits against these physicians, is it possible that these physicians need more training? If these doctors are such fertile ground for greedy lawyers, the lawyers must be winning some of these cases. That means that all of these physicians routinely commit malpractice! How is the public protected when there are special laws designed to protect doctors from the effects of committing malpractice? Do you think that your health care will improve as a result?
In order to prevail in a malpractice lawsuit against a physician, the plaintiff must show that the physician breached the standard of care owed to the patient. That means that the offending doctor did not do what a reasonable physician would have done in the same circumstance. It requires another physician to testify and to provide evidence against the accused physician. In case you didn't know, both sides hire experts. These experts are very expensive. Lawyers that sue doctors fund the cases out of their own pockets - up front. Lawyers don't just sue doctors and go to the teller window and pick up a check! A lawyer that sues a doctor and then loses at trial or has the case dismissed loses thousands and thousands of dollars. Lawyers who pick bad cases don't stay in business.
Do we really want a public policy that protects substandard medical care? Do we really want to protect errant physicians?
California and Texas already have limits on pain and suffering awards. Did that change health care in Texas or California? No - it just limited patients who were seriously injured or killed by medical malpractice from recovering for their damage.
Just hope that if you are the victim of serious medical malpractice - where the wrong lung is removed or the wrong limb, etc.... - that you don't live in Texas or California. Because in these states, such egregious malpractice will ensure that you will not receive any measure of justice.
Cranky Greg doesn't like frivolous lawsuits any more than anyone else. There are bad lawyers just as there are bad physicians. Just as bad lawyers should not receive special protection in legal malpractice lawsuits, physicians should not receive special protection, either.
It just seems silly that enacting laws to protect bad doctors will solve all of the health care problems.