A Jan. 2 piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Signs of 'crisis' fading," reported the so-called "malpractice crisis" in PA is abating, and attributed the development to legal reforms that have reduced the number of lawsuits in the state and, therefore, the amount of money being paid out by those "poor" insurance companies.

[EXCERPT]The billboard that asked the last doctor leaving Pennsylvania to turn off the lights is gone. No hospital trauma center here threatened to close its doors ...

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FROM THE NY TIMES, OCT. 19

Federal health agencies routinely flout a requirement to report any cases in which they pay medical malpractice claims against the government, federal investigators said Tuesday.

Such reports are meant to protect the public against incompetent doctors. Hospitals and health plans check such information before hiring doctors or granting them privileges.

Under a 1986 law, insurance companies, hospitals and others who pay malpractice claims on ...

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Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse is a front group for the insurance, tobacco, chemical and drug companies – it should be no surprise that they want to dismantle the civil justice system that holds them accountable for putting unsafe products on the market.

A report from the Center for Justice and Democracy (CJD) found that the network of groups behind "Lawsuit Abuse Awareness Week" and www.sickoflawsuits.org is funded largely by corporate interests. This network – Citizens Against ...

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Recent research from the Bush Department of Justice shows the so-called "litigation explosion" doesn't exist. Suits are down down in federal and state court.

This January, the White House announced that an "explosion in litigation" is creating a "logjam in America's civil courts." Yet, this summer the Bush Justice Department reported that the number of tort cases resolved in U.S. District Courts fell by 79 percent between 1985 and 2003. In 1985, 3,600 tort trials were decided by a ...

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Pittsburgh Business Times - 3:50 PM EDT Monday, August 29, 2005

State legislative measures enacted three years ago have resulted in a 5-8 percent reduction in Pennsylvania's medical malpractice costs, two state senators said.

The findings are from a study completed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, state Sen. Michael Stack, D-Philadelphia, and Sen. Jay Costa Jr., D-Allegheny, said.

According to the study, most of the reductions resulted from the state banning venue shopping,

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This week, the House of Representatives will vote on a bill that, in addition to robbing injured patients of their Seventh Amendment rights, is a giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry.

Hidden in HR 5, the bill that is being falsely advertised as malpractice insurance relief for doctors, are sweet product liability protections for the drug industry: Sweeping immunities that will make it impossible for people injured or killed by unsafe drugs — like Vioxx — to hold drug manufacturers ...

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President Bush is proposing "medical liability reform" legislation that not only limits an injured patient's right to compensation, it eliminates punitive damages against pharmaceutical companies that knowingly put dangerous drugs on the market.

The legislation says that as long as a drug maker goes through the Food and Drug Administration review process, they would NOT be subject to punitive damages - all of which assumes the FDA is doing its job protecting the public. Disclosures in ...

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Vice President Cheney says the court system is filled with too many lawsuits filed by individuals, even though nearly half of all lawsuits each year are filed by corporations suing other corporations. So, HalliburtonWatch.org conducted a survey of court actions filed by Halliburton and its subsidiaries between 1995 and 2000 -- the period when Cheney was CEO of the company. The survey indicates that while Mr. Cheney denounces lawsuits filed by citizens, he never mentions that corporations like ...

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If "tort reform" is about helping doctors and hospitals afford their malpractice insurance, why is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobbying organization, going to spend millions on ads bashing trial lawyers?

The Chamber said today it will help fund an "independent political organization" that will "tell the truth about the role John Edwards and the trial lawyers have played in driving up health care costs," said Bill Brock, a former Republican National ...

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Health Grades Inc., a healthcare quality ratings and services company in Lakewood, Colo., released a report last month (July 2004), which estimated that as many as 195,000 patients die every year in U.S. hospitals due to preventable medical errors. The entire report is available online at www.healthgrades.com.

The Health Grades estimate would make preventable medical errors the third-leading cause of death in the United States - behind heart disease and cancer, according to the Centers

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