Scranton Times
Malractice Roundtable; 'I've Decided to Stand
on This Issue'
By Jennifer L. Henn
January 17, 2003
In a small meeting room on the second floor
of Mercy Hospital, the president of the United States sat like a man among
equals Thursday.
He made no fancy
speeches.
He shook hands and called others by first names.
He
asked questions.
And when the relaxed roundtable discussion was nearly
over, he made his intentions known.
Urged by a panel member to "stand
strong" in his mission to achieve federal limits on medical malpractice jury
awards, President Bush promised he would.
"Let me say one thing about
myself: If I decide to stand, I stand strong. And I've decided to stand on this
issue," he said.
Mr. Bush listened to nearly an hour's worth of stories
and comments from 10 doctors and patients -- including three from Scranton. The
doctors told him about their struggles to obtain and pay for medical malpractice
insurance, about giving up their practices and leaving patients. And they blamed
the trial lawyers who they said are bankrupting the health care industry through
frivolous lawsuits.
"The lawyers would have you believe this (malpractice
crisis) is because of insurance companies and bad doctors. It's not," said Dr.
Michael Prendergast, retired urologist and chairman of the Pennsylvania Medical
Society. "We desperately need to reform this out-of-control system ... and we
all know who our enemies are."
Lawyers and patients' rights groups oppose
the president's plan, which would limit the amount of money a malpractice
plaintiff could receive for pain and suffering to $250,000.
Scranton
anesthesiologist Dr. Debra DeAngelo attended the meeting and told Mr. Bush she
can no longer afford her malpractice insurance. Her premiums have jumped nearly
75 percent in the last two years, she said. As a result, she is planning to
close her 4-year-old pain management practice Jan. 31, leaving 2,000 patients to
find new doctors.
"It's a very difficult decision to leave," she
said.
"Gotta be," the president replied.
"My whole philosophy for
being here is not about my story, there are hundreds of those. This (problem) is
a cancer," Dr. DeAngelo went on to say. "We know how to fix it. We can fix
it."
"If I didn't think we could, I wouldn't be sitting here," Mr. Bush
replied.
Joey Lee, one of Dr. DeAngelo's patients, also joined the panel
and told Mr. Bush he is worried about how a new doctor will treat
him.
"(Dr. DeAngelo) has given me my life back," said the 37-year-old,
who suffers from reflexive dystrophy.
Losing Dr. DeAngelo will be hard
because of the close bond Mr. Lee has formed with her, he said. "I don't know
how my new doctor is going to react to me."
Dr. Prendergast told the
president that in the last three years, nearly 900 doctors have retired, left
private practice, moved to another state or limited their services because of
the malpractice debacle.
"I think the worst is yet to come," he
said.
And James E. May, president and CEO of Mercy Health Partners, told
the president how tough it's been to recruit new doctors to the area because of
the malpractice costs.
"We have a local cardiology group advertising for
six months now for a new doctor and they have zero applications," he said.
"Usually they get 40 to 50."
Bush Prescribes Caps
By Mary Jo Feldstein
January 17, 2003
President Bush blamed a broken legal system
for the skyrocketing malpractice insurance costs threatening health care across
Pennsylvania and throughout the nation.
Too many expensive lawsuits ending in excessive jury awards and
settlements are driving up health care costs and sending physicians out of
states such as Pennsylvania, Mr. Bush said Thursday to an audience of about
1,200 at the University of Scranton's Byron Recreation Center.
"Health
care costs rise for a lot of reasons," Mr. Bush said during a 36-minute address.
"And some of those costs are necessary. But there are other costs that are
unnecessary as far as I'm concerned. And the problem of those unnecessary costs
don't start in the waiting room, or the operating room. They start in the
courtroom."
Mr. Bush culminated his whirlwind tour of Scranton with his
noontime speech. He focused primarily on lowering physicians' malpractice
premiums through changes to the legal system, but also touched on America's
failing economy and troubles with Iraq.
Before the speech, Mr. Bush held
a roundtable discussion at Mercy Hospital where 10 physicians and patients
related how rising malpractice insurance costs have affected their lives. The
attendees included Scranton physician Debra DeAngelo, her patient Joey Lee and
Mercy chief executive Jim May. Mr. Bush's entire visit lasted less than three
hours.
Mr. Bush said "junk" lawsuits are being settled so doctors can
avoid suffering the consequences of "a lousy jury" or "a lousy
verdict."
"And one thing the American people must understand is, even
though the lawsuits are junk lawsuits and have no basis, they're still
expensive," Mr. Bush said.
The president did not mention the need for
insurance reform. Many trial lawyers and Democrats say it's the lack of such
reform that causes premiums to increase. Scranton attorney Mike Foley said
insurers are only increasing rates to absorb money they lost in the stock
market.
He said capping damages is the biggest form of corporate welfare
because it "balances the ledgers of the insurance industry on the backs of
injured patients."
Dr. Shawn Hennigan, a Scranton orthopedic surgeon,
said the insurance industry defense is only a smoke screen.
"I think the
truth is that this state pays out far too much in awards," said Dr. Hennigan,
34.
Mr. Bush said he supports limiting noneconomic damages such as those
awarded for pain and suffering to $250,000. He also supports limiting rarely
awarded punitive damages and attorneys' fees.
"Excessive jury awards will
continue to drive up insurance costs, will put good doctors out of business or
run them out of your community, and it will hurt communities like Scranton,
Pennsylvania," Mr. Bush said.
One of the "excessive jury awards" that Mr.
Bush referred to was actually a $7 million settlement last week. Involved in the
case was Mercy Hospital in Wilkes-Barre, two physicians and Dorothy Thornton,
the widow of a man who ultimately died after a ventilator tube was improperly
placed in his esophagus instead of his trachea. Mercy admitted responsibility as
part of the settlement agreement.
Mrs. Thornton's attorney, Joe Quinn,
said he was sitting with her when she saw the speech on television.
"She
said to me, 'I am proud of what we did. I did it so other families would not
have to go through what I did,'" Mr. Quinn said. "Why try to vilify someone who
never said, 'I won't listen to a reasonable offer?'"
Less than an hour
after Mr. Bush's speech, Gov.-elect Ed Rendell told a news conference the
president's speech fell short in offering a comprehensive solution to the
growing medical malpractice problem that he and the state legislature are
tackling.
Mr. Rendell said he hasn't ruled out caps as part of the
solution. But he questioned whether federal caps would work soon enough and said
the federal government also needs to increase Medicare and Medicaid money --
instead of cutting both -- so doctors can afford higher premiums. Mr. Bush could
immediately help local doctors by reclassifying the region into one that gets
more Medicare money, he said.
"We don't need advice. We know the
problem," he said. "The president should not have come in and just given us
advice. He should have come in and given us help -- plain and simple as
that."
Mr. Quinn said reforming the insurance industry through tougher
regulation of premiums and investments is also crucial to lowering
premiums.
"We need to get rid of the frivolous cases and at the same time
force the recognition and prompt settlement of the legitimate cases," Mr. Quinn
said. "Do you think if George Bush Sr. had been the victim of such outrageous
care as Frank Thornton Sr. was, do you think that his family would have thought
that they had received fair and complete justice by payment of
$250,000?"
Mr. Bush spoke only briefly about negligent
doctors.
The patient safety initiatives Mr. Bush supports are outlined in
a Department of Health and Human Services report released last year. While the
report emphasizes the need for peer review, it also says the outcome of the
reviews and physicians malpractice histories should remain secret.
BORYS
KRAWCZENIUK and JENNIFER L. HENN, Tribune staff writers, contributed to this
report.
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