Columnist Benjamin Grove: Congress must tend to malpractice crisis

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Feb. 14, 2003 | 4:01 a.m.

CONGRESS LAST WEEK joined what has quickly become a national debate over medical malpractice insurance rates.

Nevada drew national attention last summer when doctors walked off the job at the only trauma center in Las Vegas in protest of skyrocketing rates. But it's not just a Nevada problem anymore -- 12 states are in crisis, with 30 near crisis, according to the American Medical Association.

Who's to blame for insurance rates that physicians say have suddenly priced them out of markets, and in some cases, out of business altogether?

Doctors, lawyers and insurance companies are pointing fingers at each other.

Now congressional lawmakers are stepping in to devise a solution.

But can Democrats and Republicans settle this complicated dispute? Probably not anytime soon. Debate on Capitol Hill just opened last week and already the two sides are entrenched in a partisan battle. After an emotional Senate hearing, it was hard to tell which side is right.

Republicans generally blame trial lawyers for filing more suits and gunning for bigger jury awards.

Democrats say the GOP solution of a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages won't spur insurance companies to drop premiums. (In Nevada, a cap implemented last fall has not yet caused rates to drop.)

Democrats argue that insurance companies are driving rates up because their investments have taken a nasty hit in the stock market. The best solution is to close loopholes that allow insurance companies to operate outside anti-trust laws, Democrats say.

Nevada's senators are on opposite sides: Democrat Harry Reid said insurance companies have too much power to set unreasonable rates, even conspire. Republican John Ensign strongly backs a $250,000 cap.

Two senators, Republican leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Democratic partisan lightning rod Hillary Clinton of New York, made sincere pleas for bipartisanship at last week's hearing. Frist vowed to look for a compromise on a bill this year.

Clinton noted somewhat wistfully, "There are many good people of good faith on both sides of the issue. It won't do us any good if we fight ourselves to a draw."

Congress often is not given credit for the work it does -- more often it is criticized for what it doesn't do. Lawmakers load a lot of issues onto their plates each year, promising to finally tackle an array of broad, complex problems. Then they get bogged down by their own ambitious to-do lists, and they further are slowed by inevitable partisan battles that -- while often frustrating -- are very much by design of the Founding Fathers.

But lawmakers would do well this year not to throw medical malpractice in the wastebasket of good intentions along with so many issues (think prescription drugs and the patients bill of rights).

They should let the words of the people caught up in the crisis ring in their ears. Like so many Nevadans, Laurie Peel of Raleigh, N.C., lost her obstetrician to sky-high malpractice insurance rates.

"I don't know the solution," Peel pleaded with lawmakers. "But I do urge you to find one."

Leanne Dyess of Gulfport, Miss., testified that her husband did not get specialist care at a local hospital after a car accident last year because the specialists had abandoned their practices.

"On that hot night in July, my husband and our family drew the short straw," Dyess said. Her husband was left permanently brain damaged and unable to care for his family. She begged Congress for help.

"Knowing that others may not have to go through what we've gone through could go a long way toward helping us heal."11Lawmakers would do well this year not to throw medical malpractice in the wastebasket of good intentions along with so many issues (think prescription drugs and the patients bill of rights). They should let the words of the people caught up in the crisis ring in their ears.