This is in response to “Medical malpractice costs driving doctors out,” a letter to the editor by Dr. Gregory D. Moss, chairman, Radiology and Imaging, and Dr. Helen Kraus, plastic and reconstructive surgery, Resurrection Medical Center of Chicago.
We must demonstrate our opposition to proposed changes to our civil justice system, which will cap non-economic damages–including pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and disfigurement.
Also we must clear up a couple of inaccuracies contained in the doctors’ letter.
The first claim made in the letter is the doctors’ claim that punitive damages are included in non-economic damages.
By statute, in the State of Illinois, punitive damages are unenforceable for even gross negligence in the field of medicine. Non-economic damages are simply the jury’s assessment of the aforementioned categories put into a dollar figure.
Punitive damages are those that set out to punish an offender, and no such awards are allowed in Illinois in medical malpractice claims.
The second suspect claim is the doctors’ assertion that the same injury caused by the same negligent act can constitute as wide a range of compensation as $10,000 to $10 million. There is no empirical or factual data showing that our civil justice system is that inconsistent.
This claim has been grossly and irresponsibly exaggerated.
Finally, the doctors who wrote the letter call on Illinoisans to contact legislators in an attempt to rectify the situation.
The doctors call on people with “common sense.”
The doctors show a different attitude toward Illinoisans, however, when they are in charge of deciding the liability of doctors in malpractice cases, one of contempt calling juries too full of “emotion.”
Did the men and women who have been the jurors at these trials for the last several decades not have common sense?
Why do the doctors who wrote the letter not trust the people of Illinois to rationally and arbitrarily act as jurors?
They call for doctors to entrust other doctors to examine cases of possible malpractice, however, this is a blatant disregard to what our Constitution and democracy call for: trial by an impartial jury.
The problem facing doctors is rising premiums, and the problem facing patients is a great deal of medical malpractice occurring all over.
Rectifying both problems will involve a comprehensive solution.
Capping damages is not the answer and, in fact, it will do neither. For example, the five states with the largest premiums in the country–Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio and West Virginia–have caps in place already. Also the startling number of deaths attributed to medical malpractice–more than 95,000 a year–tell us the problem may not lie in the courtroom.
Where will the standard of health care go without the chance of a lawsuit?
Will the amount of wrongful death and injury increase?
The doctors claim that our legislators are only paying attention to the lobbyists and special-interest groups.
We hope they recognize that in Washington, D.C., an army of lobbyists from insurance companies and millions of dollars are working to impose this cap on America.
Of course, the insurance companies are largely acting on behalf of themselves. And, with nobody acting on the doctors’ behalf, we can understand the letter writers’ frustrations.
We propose, however, that they look in the other direction when looking to reform the system, the other direction being at insurance companies, not the civil justice system.
