The next time someone complains about escalating malpractice premiums driving doctors out of business, following is some pertinent information. This argument is often used by Big Insurance and its front organizations, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, to promote unneeded "tort reform" legislation. In truth, premiums are falling and the number of U.S. doctors continues to rise. The National [...]
A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) acknowledges what advocates for consumers of healthcare have long known: caps on damages in medical malpractice claims do not work. The NEJM article, titled "A Systematic Approach to Containing Healthcare Spending," explains that "[s]trategies to control costs associated with medical malpractice and defensive medicine must be responsible [...]
The next time that someone tells you that malpractice premiums are escalating and contribute to runaway healthcare costs, please make them aware of the following information. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners published statistics on malpractice payouts showing that direct losses incurred have dropped from a high of $8,459,389,539 in 2003 to $3,655,161,296 in 2011. Without factoring in inflation, that [...]
I recently published an article entitled "Think Before You Sue" It was published in a local monthly magazine called the Beachwood Buzz, a monthly magazine circulated to all homes and businesses in the eastside suburb where my office is located. In that article I addressed some of the topics and concerns that many people have [...]
Since the Institute of Medicine reported in 1999 that over 100,000 Americans die from medical mistakes every year, no major initiative has been undertaken to reduce the mounting healthcare costs and huge emotional toll caused by these epidemic rates of medical negligence. Rather than identifying and addressing root causes of this national embarrassment, doctors and their organizations have [...]
Medical malpractice insurers have engineered "extremely high levels of profit" and have systematically overestimated their losses in recent years, a new report finds. The report can be viewed here: http://www.justice.org/cps/rde/xbcr/justice/Reserving_Practices_and_Record_Profits_2012.pdf. "The average profit margin for the top 10 medical malpractice insurers was twice as high as the average profit margin of the 50 most profitable Fortune [...]
Having had the privilege of trying many cases over the years, I have likewise had the privilege of meeting many Ohio citizens who are sitting as jurors for the first time. During jury selection, I often ask jurors if they feel there should be caps on damages in medical negligence cases. Many, if not most, [...]
Several years ago, the Office of Management and Budget published data showing that the costs associated with medical negligence litigation are shrinking, not growing, and constitute a negligible portion of the total healthcare budget. Nonetheless, insurers, whose out-of-control profit margins are the main contributor to runaway healthcare costs, continue to beat this drum. It may [...]
At Mishkind Kulwicki Law, we represent the "little guy," random Americans who paid for one kind of medical care but got something much, much worse. The little guy gets knocked around by a healthcare system that is built for profit, not for safety. The little guy can't compete with Big Insurance, Big Medicine, Big Pharma [...]
A bill currently before an Ohio Senate committee looks to give doctors more protection and patients less. Ohio Senate Bill 129 would take away patients' right to sue for medical errors when they receive emergency medical services under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA). This civil immunity bill, if passed, would [...]