It's the Patients, Stupid

Seems lately when we hear medical malpractice reform (or tort reform) talk, all we hear about are the doctors agonzing about the amount they're having to spend on medical malpractice insurance. What's being lost is that the high cost of medical malpractice is brought about not from excessive jury awards, but from...well, medical malpractice. Ted Rall talks about it in this column, citing some examples of those who've suffered from the treatment of careless physicians:

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?

And another horrifying story:

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.

Ted Rall recognizes that in all the commotion about the high cost of medical malpractice insurance, and medical expenses overall, we've sort of lost the reason all that juries are awarding money to patients in the first place. No one has ever been awarded millions of dollars who didn't suffer some sort of horrifying injury, and yet somehow this concern doesn't seem compare to the sob stories of doctors forced to choose between practicing medicine in one city, or one state, and another so they can still afford their Lexuses and condiminiums.

I just finished my first semester of law school, so maybe I'm biased. Then again, I had the same opinion before I begin, and it's only been reinforced by what I've learned and what I'm seeing first hand. What I've studied and read about extensively are court systems that have agonized over how to measure damages to bodies and souls that is essentially immeasurable, and doing their best to award a sum that can compensate the victim of malpractice for what they've lost forever in bodily function, enjoyment of life, or the ability to support their families. I've also seen courts just as hastily reject absurd or ridiculous claims from those who've suffered little or no injury. But ultimately these awards don't come down to judges or lawyers; they come down to people just like you and me, sitting on the jury. I don't know about you, but I trust jurors-guided by judges who seek only justice-with deciding how much the pain of a wrongly amputated limb, or a life cut short, is worth. Who I do not trust is Republicans with their arbitrary guidelines as to how much a life or limb should be worth.

The real cause of the medical malpractice insurance "crisis" is, not surprisingly, medical malpractice. Many of the doctors who have caused some of these horrific injuries continue practicing. What's more horrible to you? The thought of a paralyzed young man receiving millions for his injury, or the thought of the doctor who caused that injury treating you, or your loved ones? We need to be addressing the root cause of the issue, not shoring those who have suffered from malpractice. Let's put the focus where it belongs.

UPDATE: Tax-exempt hospitals' practices challenged