Medical Malpractice Tort Reform

Wisconsin personal injury lawyers and most Wisconsin attorneys know this, but the call for "Tort Reform" by medical malpractice insurers and doctors, who as publicity stunts have gone on "strike", is aimed not at legislators but rather at potential jurors in medical malpractice cases and injury lawsuits. Honest legislators realize that insurers problems have nothing to do with lawsuits, as reported by the Wall Street Journal article lawsuits not basis for high Medical Malpractice Insurance Costs.

Instead, insurance companies have tried to poison jury pools. The TomPain.com website - www.tompain.com shows how the real target of all the lies and deception from insurers and doctors' strikes at their behest are the juries in malpractice cases and injury lawsuits in general. Its "Target Juries" states:

Have you checked your auto, homeowners, or business insurance premiums lately? They’re way up. Why? Because insurance companies, which like to gamble in the stock and bond markets, have taken a drubbing. They’re trying to recoup by boosting premiums.

Insurers have jacked up medical malpractice insurance rates, too. Doctors are howling. In headline-grabbing strikes across the nation, they proclaim they can’t practice medicine without affordable insurance. True enough.

But instead of fingering the real culprits -- insurance companies -- doctors and the American Medical Association have joined insurers in blaming injured patients who file supposedly "frivolous" lawsuits and jurors they say are eager to make huge malpractice awards.

Their solution -- limiting the discretion of jurors by capping jury awards, so-called "tort reform" -- is as fraudulent as the manufactured crisis it’s supposed to address.

Donald J. Zuk, CEO of a major malpractice insurer, has said as much. Commenting on rising malpractice premiums, Zuk told The Wall Street Journal last year, "I don’t like to hear insurance-company executives say it’s the tort system -- it’s self-inflicted."

In fact, when malpractice premiums spiked in the 1980s, many states capped jury awards. That hasn’t held rates down. (California passed insurance reform in 1988 -- that worked.) And if discouraging "frivolous" lawsuits is the goal, why cap damages in successful suits, those that, by definition, are not frivolous?

The current insurance "crisis" is, in fact, just the latest push in a decades-long effort to pass "tort reform" -- a campaign by corporations, doctors and insurance companies to insulate themselves from legal accountability by tying jurors hands.

"The people pushing tort reform have used campaign contributions and lobbying to compromise elected officials and regulators," says one consumer advocate. "Juries are the last line of protection for consumers. Jurors don’t take campaign contributions. They can’t be lobbied. What tort reformers fear most is 12 people they can’t control."

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	Have you checked your auto, homeowners, or business insurance premiums lately? They’re way up. Why? Because insurance companies, which like to gamble in the stock and bond markets, have taken a drubbing. They’re trying to recoup by boosting premiums.
	Insurers have jacked up medical malpractice insurance rates, too. Doctors are howling. In headline-grabbing strikes across the nation, they proclaim they can’t practice medicine without affordable insurance. True enough.
	But instead of fingering the real culprits -- insurance companies -- doctors and the American Medical Association have joined insurers in blaming injured patients who file supposedly "frivolous" lawsuits and jurors they say are eager to make huge malpractice awards.
	Their solution -- limiting the discretion of jurors by capping jury awards, so-called "tort reform" -- is as fraudulent as the manufactured crisis it’s supposed to address.
	Donald J. Zuk, CEO of a major malpractice insurer, has said as much. Commenting on rising malpractice premiums, Zuk told The Wall Street Journal last year, "I don’t like to hear insurance-company executives say it’s the tort system -- it’s self-inflicted."
	In fact, when malpractice premiums spiked in the 1980s, many states capped jury awards. That hasn’t held rates down. (California passed insurance reform in 1988 -- that worked.) And if discouraging "frivolous" lawsuits is the goal, why cap damages in successful suits, those that, by definition, are not frivolous?
	The current insurance "crisis" is, in fact, just the latest push in a decades-long effort to pass "tort reform" -- a campaign by corporations, doctors and insurance companies to insulate themselves from legal accountability by tying jurors hands.
	"The people pushing tort reform have used campaign contributions and lobbying to compromise elected officials and regulators," says one consumer advocate. "Juries are the last line of protection for consumers. Jurors don’t take campaign contributions. They can’t be lobbied. What tort reformers fear most is 12 people they can’t control."