I serve on WAMPAC, a political action committee for the Washington State Medical Association (WSMA). To help guide our members, last month we met with candidates for Washington State governor Rob McKenna and Jay Inslee. They were both generous with their time and answered our questions.
As physicians, one of our issues is tort reform. We are concerned that large and unreasonable malpractice awards increase the cost of medical care and cause physicians to order unnecessary tests as ‘defensive medicine’. Attorney General Rob McKenna said he was supportive of tort reform, though didn’t give much specifics. Congressman Jay Inslee said he did not believe in malpractice caps because, he said, unlike others, juries are untainted and therefore we need to respect their decisions. That prompted me to send him the following letter. One month later, he has yet to respond. I wonder how I’ll vote in the primary?
Dear Mr. Inslee,
I enjoyed meeting you, and appreciate your spending time to talk with the Washington State Medical Association WAMPAC Committee 7/3/12 regarding your candidacy for governor.
On the issue of tort reform, you mentioned that you didn’t support malpractice caps because you believed in juries making the decision, as they are untainted by lobbyists or others.
Speaking for myself, I have some concerns about this. Short of Plato’s philosopher kings, juries may be the best choice to decide cases, but they are hardly perfect. There are numerous well documented cases of people sentenced to death, yet later found innocent by DNA evidence. In malpractice cases, I would argue that juries are far from perfect. How else could you explain the differences in the chances of being sued and the size of the award based on specialty (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1012370)? The average neurosurgeon is sued once every 5 ½ years. You would be hard pressed to find a retired neurosurgeon who has never been sued.
Even if juries make perfectly logical decisions, it’s only as good as the cases presented to them, which may be flawed.
In cases where juries decide the outcome, there are restraints. There are judicial guidelines, and juries cannot impose the death penalty for shoplifting, for example, even if they wanted to. Putting financial caps on malpractice cases would be no different. The jury could still decide if the defendant is guilty, but guidelines would cap the size of the reward.
I hope you will reconsider your view on tort reform.
Sincerely,
Daniel Ginsberg, MD, FACP
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Lawyers as politiians, I can’t think of a worse combination.
Lawyers as political news presenters, I can’t think of a worse combintaion.
Additionally, I feel it should be required that federal office holders, at least the Preident should have served in our military.