Ensign: More needed to halt malpractice crisis

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2002 | 9:22 a.m.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., thinks he has the cure for the medical malpractice crisis causing obstetricians to flee Nevada and said Tuesday that the state's new law meant to solve the problem falls short.

Together with officials from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Ensign said that Nevada's law putting a $350,000 cap on medical malpractice suits has not brought insurance rates down.

The time has come, he said, to push for national reform of medical malpractice laws -- or the state will continue to lose OB/GYNs.

But medical malpractice attorneys who worked on the legislation say the state law -- in effect since Oct. 1 -- has not had a chance to survive on its own merits, and only time will tell if rates can be lowered.

Ensign's announcement came on the heels of the college's recent labeling of Nevada as the worst state in the country for women's health care. Nevada has risen to the top of the college's list of nine "hot states" nationwide with rising malpractice rates leading high-risk doctors to look elsewhere for work, said Tom Purdon, president of the college, which represents 40,000 OB/GYNs nationally.

"Nevada -- and especially Southern Nevada -- has become the worst place to find OB/GYN care in the country," he said.

The Las Vegas Valley has lost dozens of the specialists in recent months, leaving about 80 to deliver 23,000 babies in the next 12 months.

"Our research shows that Clark County will lose an additional 20 to 30 OB/GYN providers in the next three to six months ... You simply cannot afford to lose even one more doctor," Purdon said.

Ensign said Nevada's new law does not go far enough in addressing the crisis.

"Gov. Guinn's (law) was just a first step," he said. In the three weeks it has been in effect, doctor's insurance rates have not dropped because insurance companies are still nervous about whether the law will withstand any challenges in Nevada Supreme Court.

The senator said a law similar to California's, which places a $250,000 cap on damages, is needed nationwide.

"This is the beginning of a grass-roots effort to draw local and national attention to the need for tort reform," he said.

But Gerald Gillock, a Las Vegas-based medical malpractice attorney and member of the Nevada Trial Lawyers Association who helped draft Guinn's legislation, said Ensign is jumping the gun.

"Why won't Sen. Ensign give Gov. Guinn's bill a chance to work?" he said. "There's not been one case taken to court yet and it's still too early to tell."

What's more, the attorney said, the difference between a $250,000 cap and a $350,000 means nothing when it comes to insurance rates.

"The difference in (doctors') premiums ... is zero," he said. "The insurance companies are not going to lower their rates with the lower cap.

"The whole idea of pointing the finger at the victim is ridiculous. We need to put attention on the insurance companies ... who have gouged the doctors here, and the HMOs, who have cut reimbursements to doctors so that they're having to see three times as many patients to make a living."

Ensign, however, said the current situation is "lining the wallets of lawyers."

"As this crisis builds," he said, "you don't know when it'll get to the point where we're going to have to pass national legislation."