FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Paul Lyon, Spokesman
DATE: June 1, 2006

Santorum-Frist Push for ‘Medical Liability Reform’
Driven by Personal, Special Interests

KINGSTON, Pa. (June 1, 2006) – A victims’ rights group today blasted two “visiting” U.S. senators as hypocrites who have misdiagnosed Pennsylvania’s medical liability insurance problem and have prescribed a remedy that will benefit only themselves and the special interests they represent, not doctors and patients.

The Committee for Justice for All welcomed “visiting” Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum back from Virginia where he apparently has taken up permanent residence with his family, as well as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, who joined Santorum for a campaign event today in Dunmore.

“Hundreds of thousands of patients are dying every year in the United States because of preventable medical mistakes, but all Rick Santorum and Bill Frist can talk about is how we need to fix the legal system,” said Paul Lyon, a spokesman for CJA. “Their prescription for lowering doctors’ liability insurance costs – a one-size-fits-all $250,000 cap on damages in medical negligence lawsuits – is like prescribing blood-pressure medication to cure cancer. It won’t do a thing to solve the problem. It’s political malpractice.”

The Institute of Medicine has estimated that as many as 98,000 patients a year die in hospitals due to preventable medical errors. Other studies have put the annual death toll even higher.
The IOM study puts medical errors among the top five leading causes of death in America. It is the equivalent of two jumbo jets crashing every day. 

In Pennsylvania, the Patient Safety Authority has said the state’s hospitals reported nearly 170,000 “serious events” and “near misses” during 2005. In more than 6,700 of those cases, patients suffered some form of harm, including serious injury and death.

“If terrorists were killing two jumbo jets full of people a day, Rick Santorum and Bill Frist would be dropping bombs on somebody,” said Lyon. “Until they get serious about medical errors, they have no right to complain about lawsuits and attack patients’ rights. Based on the medical community’s own studies, there should be more lawsuits, not fewer.”

Lyon also decried the hypocrisy of Santorum and Frist pushing for “tort reform,” noting that Santorum’s wife, Karen, collected a $350,000 jury verdict in a lawsuit against her chiropractor several years ago. [“Santorum’s Wife Wins Lawsuit,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Dec. 11, 1999]

Frist, a doctor, has a made a fortune in the insurance business and has a vested interest in restricting malpractice victims’ rights. [“Frist’s support of caps would favor family business,” Associated Press, Dec. 4, 2005] 

Furthermore, a recent study shows malpractice insurer Health Care Indemnity, a subsidiary of Frist’s family business, Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), is one of the worst offenders when it comes to price-gouging doctors. According to a recent study by the Center for Justice & Democracy, between 1999 and 2004, HCI increased doctors’ premiums 88 percent while its claims payments to malpractice victims dropped by 32 percent.

“For Rick Santorum and Bill Frist, ‘tort reform’ is all about helping themselves and their K Street friends in the insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry and medical lobby,” said Lyon. “Meanwhile, seriously injured patients will be left out in the cold and doctors won’t save a penny because insurance companies like HCI will keep gouging them.”

CJA is a nonprofit Northeastern Pennsylvania advocacy group fighting to preserve the integrity of the civil justice system and the Constitutional right of all Americans to trial by a jury of their peers. For more information, visit our web site at www.saynotocaps.org. 

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