Editorial: Trashing deal isn’t the answer

Wednesday, July 31, 2002 | 9:16 a.m.

On Monday Gov. Kenny Guinn and the Legislature's leadership reached a reasonable compromise on tort reform. But that bipartisan deal quickly unraveled. Doctors threatened Tuesday to withhold their support for the package after the insurance industry wouldn't offer assurances that medical malpractice rates would drop once a cap is put in place. The agreement that's come under fire, however, is one that could help ease the medical malpractice crisis in Southern Nevada.

Tinkering with our jury system should be a last resort, but doctors made a compelling argument that some tort reform was needed to help bring down skyrocketing medical malpractice insurance rates. Under the compromise plan, a $350,000 cap would be imposed on jury awards for pain and suffering, somewhat higher than the $250,000 cap the doctors had sought. And in an important acknowledgement that a cookie-cutter approach isn't fair, the compromise does allow exceptions to the cap. In cases involving gross negligence by doctors, death, brain damage, paraplegia, blindness, loss of limbs, permanent sterility and where a court determines by "clear and convincing" evidence that more than $350,000 is justified, the pain and suffering damage amount could be raised to the maximum amount of a doctor's malpractice insurance policy, which in most cases is $1 million.

It is the exceptions to the cap on pain and suffering that have upset doctors so much. That's because the insurance industry claims that including exceptions still would allow for costly jury awards, a prospect that may block immediate reductions in insurance premiums. The doctors' insurance rates may not come down as much as they likely would if their proposal was adopted, but they would still get a cap under the compromise plan, which would provide insurers with more stability than they currently have.

Early today the Democratic-dominated Assembly voted to approve the original plan that the governor helped engineer. The Republican-controlled Senate, though, will consider legislation that takes out most of the exceptions for caps found in the compromise, only allowing exceptions for gross negligence and cases where a court determines an award of more than $350,000 is justified. Ironically, it has been fellow Republicans who have given Guinn the most anguish over the legislation, with nearly all Democrats siding with the governor's brokered compromise. Despite the differences, a deal still should be within sight. Any legislation passed not only should make sure that some tort reform is adopted, but that the bill also includes exceptions to the cap, protecting patients by making sure that doctors are held accountable for egregious errors.