Anti-Patient Health Care Scheme
| By Colorado Citizens for Accountability - May 1st, 2006 at 4:35 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Arapahoe County | Colorado Citizens for Accountability |
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Categories: Civil Liberties / Privacy, Affordable Healthcare, Consumer and Worker Protection, Corporate Accountability / Workers' Rights
Categories: Civil Liberties / Privacy, Affordable Healthcare, Consumer and Worker Protection, Corporate Accountability / Workers' Rights
FRIST'S ANTI-PATIENT HEALTH CARE SCEME
By Patty Skolnik
Get ready for another dose of corporate-friendly legislation from the good hands people in Washington, D.C.
Oval Office contender, Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), will unveil an anti-consumer bill in early May. The measure is designed to cap civil damage awards against bad doctors, HMO's and the Insurance Industry. Frist's well-connected corporate allies want a national limit on damages. They want to limit awards to $250,000 on such trivial matters as "pain and suffering."
If Frist and his Insurance Industry friends win, it means a husband could not obtain justice from the people who killed his spouse. Instead, a government approved protection plan guarantees wrongdoers feel no pain.
It's no accident that Frist, whose family owns the Hospital Corporation of America, one of the largest and most profitable hospital chains in the county, announced the measure during "Health Week" in D.C.
Good health in Washington usually fattens the pockets of politically connected corporations. Frist's plan will only benefit insurance companies, which reaped $44.8-billion in profits last year.
What's next? A government-backed law that lets Exxon charge $3.50 a gallon, yet protects the oil giant from environmental lawsuits?
I know more about medical malpractice than most people. I learned it the hard way after a hospital error ended my son's life and changed mine forever. My only son Michael underwent an unnecessary brain operation in 2001. A doctor misdiagnosed his ailment and recommended surgery. Thus began a thirty-two month nightmare that saw Michael suffer bleeds to the brain, infections, pulmonary embolisms, paralysis and death.
Michael is hardly the only patient to die from a hospital mistake. Nearly 195,000 people are killed annually in America due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors, according to a study of 37 million patient records by the Lakewood-based research group HealthGrades.
No wonder Frist's Insurance Industry friends want to prevent damaged patients and families from seeking justice in a court of law.
I work to protect and strengthen the civil justice system. I want the wrongdoers to face up to their responsibilities.
Frist, however, believes civil justice defenders like me are insignificant bit players in some kind of lawsuit lottery. Trust me, I have not won anything. I lost a son and now fight to prevent similar tragedies from shattering other lives.
Frist's Health Week scheme is nothing more than the latest in a series of corporate-backed attacks on the civil justice system and the people who want to protect it. The corporate and political liars behind this distortion campaign want you to believe that caps help our health care system.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Insurance premiums in states with damage caps are 12 percent higher than those states without caps. OB/GYNs in states with caps pay higher malpractice insurance premiums than their counterparts in states without caps. Surgeons in states with caps pay nearly 20 percent more for malpractice insurance premiums than the surgeons in states without caps.
Insurance companies have paid only 160 medical malpractice claims per year in Colorado since 2001. The majority of these were worth less than $125,000. Meantime, the Insurance Industry has pocketed more than $80 million while doing business in Colorado over the last five years.
The system Frist embraces is unfair to everyone, except insurance giants that have the money and clout to gain government-backed protection.
Colorado passed tort reform measures 20 years ago. We were told the caps would lower insurance rates and improve the health care business. Yet today, in Colorado and across the nation, medical malpractice rates continue to escalate. So do Insurance Industry profits and the number of people accidentally killed by medical mistakes.
Patty Skolnik is the founder of Colorado Citizens for Accountability, a grassroots, non-profit dedicated to protecting civil justice and holding powerful interest groups accountable from misdeeds.
You can learn more about her organization at Link.
By Patty Skolnik
Get ready for another dose of corporate-friendly legislation from the good hands people in Washington, D.C.
Oval Office contender, Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), will unveil an anti-consumer bill in early May. The measure is designed to cap civil damage awards against bad doctors, HMO's and the Insurance Industry. Frist's well-connected corporate allies want a national limit on damages. They want to limit awards to $250,000 on such trivial matters as "pain and suffering."
If Frist and his Insurance Industry friends win, it means a husband could not obtain justice from the people who killed his spouse. Instead, a government approved protection plan guarantees wrongdoers feel no pain.
It's no accident that Frist, whose family owns the Hospital Corporation of America, one of the largest and most profitable hospital chains in the county, announced the measure during "Health Week" in D.C.
Good health in Washington usually fattens the pockets of politically connected corporations. Frist's plan will only benefit insurance companies, which reaped $44.8-billion in profits last year.
What's next? A government-backed law that lets Exxon charge $3.50 a gallon, yet protects the oil giant from environmental lawsuits?
I know more about medical malpractice than most people. I learned it the hard way after a hospital error ended my son's life and changed mine forever. My only son Michael underwent an unnecessary brain operation in 2001. A doctor misdiagnosed his ailment and recommended surgery. Thus began a thirty-two month nightmare that saw Michael suffer bleeds to the brain, infections, pulmonary embolisms, paralysis and death.
Michael is hardly the only patient to die from a hospital mistake. Nearly 195,000 people are killed annually in America due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors, according to a study of 37 million patient records by the Lakewood-based research group HealthGrades.
No wonder Frist's Insurance Industry friends want to prevent damaged patients and families from seeking justice in a court of law.
I work to protect and strengthen the civil justice system. I want the wrongdoers to face up to their responsibilities.
Frist, however, believes civil justice defenders like me are insignificant bit players in some kind of lawsuit lottery. Trust me, I have not won anything. I lost a son and now fight to prevent similar tragedies from shattering other lives.
Frist's Health Week scheme is nothing more than the latest in a series of corporate-backed attacks on the civil justice system and the people who want to protect it. The corporate and political liars behind this distortion campaign want you to believe that caps help our health care system.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Insurance premiums in states with damage caps are 12 percent higher than those states without caps. OB/GYNs in states with caps pay higher malpractice insurance premiums than their counterparts in states without caps. Surgeons in states with caps pay nearly 20 percent more for malpractice insurance premiums than the surgeons in states without caps.
Insurance companies have paid only 160 medical malpractice claims per year in Colorado since 2001. The majority of these were worth less than $125,000. Meantime, the Insurance Industry has pocketed more than $80 million while doing business in Colorado over the last five years.
The system Frist embraces is unfair to everyone, except insurance giants that have the money and clout to gain government-backed protection.
Colorado passed tort reform measures 20 years ago. We were told the caps would lower insurance rates and improve the health care business. Yet today, in Colorado and across the nation, medical malpractice rates continue to escalate. So do Insurance Industry profits and the number of people accidentally killed by medical mistakes.
Patty Skolnik is the founder of Colorado Citizens for Accountability, a grassroots, non-profit dedicated to protecting civil justice and holding powerful interest groups accountable from misdeeds.
You can learn more about her organization at Link.
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