It’s a total no-brainer that medical malpractice caps for damages sustained in a medical malpractice case are detrimental for the victim. It’s the innocent victim that was harmed so seriously that their whole life has been forever altered. They may face the rest of their lives trying to cope with significant injuries acquired due to the negligence of some physician. Capping damages at $250,000, something proposed in the about-to-be health care reform bill, will punish the victim and not adequately compensate them for their true expenses over the rest of their lives. If the law is about justice, capping medical malpractice damage awards is not just. It’s a thinly disguised ploy by insurance companies (who support tort reform, by the way) to keep their expenses down and not have to pay out such high damage claims. Interestingly enough, many large insurance companies insist they really only want to keep the price of soaring med mal insurance down. Well, in states that have the med mal cap in place already, the prices of medical practice insurance have continued to climb, cap or no cap. Look to the insurance company’s coffers for the reason for that. Insurance companies also claim that high damage awards create defensive medicine; medicine where doctors go overboard and order expensive tests to be safe. Frankly, any good doctor will order what they feel is necessary, not what they think they should order to keep their malpractice insurance rates down. The only thing defensive medicine does is increase the cost of medical care to the end user. It should be noted that the American Association for Justice has recently released a new report that reveals tort reform (capping med mal damage awards) which has succeeded in providing a lovely windfall of cash for the insurance companies. On the other hand, patients and doctors continue to pay ever increasing premiums. Here is what is really interesting though: those insurance companies who insure physicians for malpractice showed their profits as being 24% higher in states with med mal caps on the books. So in 2008 alone, those same insurers raked in 3.5 times â€more†in premiums than they paid out. What happened in states with no caps? Insurance companies still did really well in amassing just slightly over twice that they paid out for claims. This clearly demonstrates what many people have been saying for years, that there is â€no†relationship between the high cost of med mal insurance premiums and health insurance premiums. However, the reality is insurance companies â€want†you to think that there is a relationship. Right now there are at least 30 states that have malpractice caps. You’d be right on the money (pun intended) if you automatically thought those insurance companies are making high profits. Ready for this? In 2008 (just imagine what the figures are now) the average profit for the 10 largest med mal insurers was â€higher†than 99% of Fortune 500 companies. This isn’t right, ethical or moral. Speak out and tell people what â€your†opinion is about penalizing victims of medical malpractice by ensuring their damage awards will not be enough to allow them to cope with their injuries for the rest of their lives.
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