- NEW YORK -- On a recent
episode of "Fear Factor," two flat-tummied babes in hot pants
and jogging bras agreed to be locked into a glass coffin with 500 panicky
tarantulas--"we're adding crickets to keep the tarantulas active,"
the show's host explained helpfully--as their boyfriends sawed a metal
bar to free them. At stake in this ordeal was the chance to proceed to
the next of eight elimination rounds, the survivors of which were promised
one million dollars. It's amazing what people will do for money.
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- Still, there are limits. How much money would you require
in order to consent to having your leg chopped off? A finger? Would you
agree to be blinded for $1 million? $10 million? Would you let yourself
be killed? After all, you're going to die anyway.
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- Wouldn't passing away painlessly, under anesthesia, be
worth the price if you believed that your family would become wealthy as
a result?
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- If you're rational, you think these are crazy questions.
Good health, a sound body, life itself are all priceless. No amount of
money can compensate you for unnecessarily losing a function or body part.
And that's what the Bush Administration and its medical industry allies
think too. Under their proposed "tort reform" legislation, you'll
receive virtually nothing if you're butchered by a careless doctor.
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- A jury can award two classes of damages to a victim of
medical malpractice: economic and punitive. Economic damages compensate
a patient for future wages lost as a result of a doctor's mistake; punitive
awards account for other victims who may not have sued, They also send
a warning to other doctors not to behave negligently. Bush wants to slap
a limit on economic damages, but with the average household earning about
$40,000 a year, lost wages tend to be relatively low. The current proposal
focuses on the punitive component because it comprises the biggest part
of large damage awards. Bush wants to limit punitive damages to $250,000.
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- "This liability system, I'm telling you, is out
of control," Bush says. "Because the system is so unpredictable,
there is a constant risk of being hit by a massive jury award. It's costly
for the doctors, it's costly for small businesses, it's costly for hospitals,
it is really costly for patients."
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- First it's Iraq (news - web sites). Then Social Security
(news - web sites). Now more lies to create a phony torts crisis.
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- The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (news -
web sites) finds that the costs associated with malpractice--buying insurance
and paying out damage awards--amounts to less than two percent of America's
skyrocketing healthcare expenses. "Even a reduction of 25 percent
to 30 percent in malpractice costs would lower healthcare costs by only
about 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent, and the likely effect on health insurance
premiums would be comparably small," the CBO determined. That's chump
change--a mere five bucks out of the $900 I blow on health insurance each
month.
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- Of course, there's an easy way for a doctor to avoid
malpractice suits: do a good job. Do no harm and you probably won't get
sued. And the courts are good at throwing out frivolous lawsuits before
they become expensive.
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- Contrary to corporate belief, patients don't undergo
surgery in hope of striking it rich as the result of some medical mishap.
And victims rarely sue. Those who do are desperate for justice and money
to cover the additional medical care necessitated by their doctor's incompetence.
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- Consider, for example, the case of Yvonne Kimura, a 49-year-old
pharmacist from Fresno. Surgeons at the University of California, San Francisco
Medical Center operated on her to remove a benign tumor in her leg. At
one point in the operation they decided to cut a nerve without bothering
to call in a specialist to determine whether it was a motor or sensory
nerve. Big mistake. She can no longer move or feel her foot. She'll wear
a brace the rest of her life. A San Francisco jury awarded her $3.3 million
in punitive plus $286,000 in future wage loss and medical expenses. Would
you trade places with Ms. Kimura, even for $3.6 million?
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- Like 26 other states, however, California already caps
punitive damages at $250,000. Mr. Kimura collected just $536,000, minus
legal fees that may have run as high as one third. To Republicans who believe
she got what she deserves: get in touch. I'll gladly smash one of your
legs with a sledgehammer for half a million bucks, but I get the TV rights.
Operators are standing by.
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- Let's look at another example of "out of control"
malpractice litigation. A Durham, North Carolina woman who suffered a "horror
show of medical complications after her wisdom teeth were pulled"
set the 2002 state record for a jury award: $5 million. Her oral surgeon's
slowness and clumsiness caused her "nerve damage, a bad jaw joint
and excruciating pain." She required pain medicine so powerful that
it caused her an impacted bowel ailment, requiring the removal of two-thirds
of her colon, a large part of her small intestine and her reproductive
organs. $5 million can't compensate for the fact that she will never bear
children. $500 million wouldn't get close, but George W. Bush thinks $250,000
is more than sufficient.
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- Or how about this one: On November 9, 1992, Maryland
resident Valerie Shea was (correctly) given an emergency Caesarean section
at Anne Arundel Medical Center. But after her son Patrick was delivered,
he was still suffering from fetal tachycardia, a condition which made his
heart race at over 200 beats per minute and turned his skin blue. He was
suffocating. Her pediatrician placed an oxygen mask on Patrick and put
ice on his cheeks to revive him, but mistakenly waited 56 minutes before
sticking a breathing tube down his throat. Finally, 80 minutes after the
birth, the doctor took a nurse's suggestion and administered the heart
medication adenosine. Patrick lived. But he suffered severe brain injuries
during that crucial hour and 20 minutes. With an IQ of 49, he is in special
education and requires 24-hour care.
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- When he was nine years old, Patrick's parents sued the
pediatrician and hospital after a nurse who had witnessed the birth finally
stepped forward and told them what had happened. A jury handed them $1.4
million for the child's future medical expenses, $3.5 million for his lost
earning capacity and $1.5 million for pain and suffering.
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- "Every day, we worried, what will happen to him
when we're gone," Patrick's mom said after the verdict. "Now
we don't have to worry." Seems like a fair use of the insurance company's
$6.4 million, not to mention my five bucks.
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