Chicago Sun Times: Some question 'crisis' Bush aims to fix

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Some question 'crisis' Bush aims to fix

January 5, 2005

BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Legal Affairs Reporter

President Bush used Downstate Madison County today to relaunch his campaign against "lawsuit abuse" he says drives doctors from this Mississippi River area and other communities around the country.

But lawyers and court watchers say doctors win most cases in Madison County. Of the 364 medical malpractice suits filed there since 1996, only eight resulted in verdicts against doctors or hospitals for a total of $3 million, or about $380,000 each.

"I don't think the stats on verdicts bear out all the rhetoric being given out by politicians and the media," said Judy Riley, president of the Verdict Reporter of St. Louis, which records Madison County verdicts.

MADISON COUNTY CASES
Of the 364 lawsuits filed against Madison County doctors and hospitals in the last eight years, only eight resulted in verdicts against them.
Medical malpractice cases filed since 1996: 364 Cases dismissed or settled out of court: 196 Cases that went to trial: 21 Cases won by doctors/hospitals: 13 Cases won by patients: 8 Average jury award: $380,000 Largest award: $1.7 million
Sources: Verdict Reporter of St. Louis; Madison County Circuit Clerk

Doctors say they're bailing out

Madison County's doctors say they need no statistics to convince them of a crisis. They see their insurance rates skyrocketing and their colleagues moving across the river to St. Louis or farther.

"There are two kinds of doctors in Madison County: those that are leaving and those that are thinking about leaving. Everyone has a bail-out plan," said Greg Gabliani, a cardiologist who stopped doing invasive procedures last year to cut his insurance from $60,000 to $30,000. "If a patient needs catheterization, I have to send them to a colleague. Sending patients across the river to St. Louis for a heart attack is not ideal."

President Bush's prescription for relief is to prohibit juries from awarding more than $250,000 to victims of medical malpractice for pain and suffering. Only four of the Madison County cases would have been affected by that.

States with caps have lower insurance rates for doctors than states that don't, Bush has said on his previous campaigns for caps, which passed the House of Representatives but stalled in the Senate.

Lawyers slam lawsuit caps

Trial lawyers and other opponents of Bush's plan decry it as an enrichment scheme for insurance companies, which they say charge lower rates in states such as California not because those states have caps but because those states regulate insurance companies.

"Illinois is notorious among insurance regulators not just for having weak regulations, but for ... the commissioner having just no authority to approve rates. Malpractice insurers in Illinois can charge whatever they want," said Jay Angoff, a former director of the Missouri Insurance Department.

No official numbers prove an exodus of doctors from Madison and neighboring St. Clair Counties, ranked No. 1 and No. 2 by the American Tort Reform Association as "judicial hellholes" because the associations there say juries and judges are too generous to plaintiffs.

Angela Bard, a pediatrician and secretary-treasurer of the Madison County Medical Society, said 200 doctors have left Madison and St. Clair counties in the last two years. Several will share the stage with Bush today.

"Our obstetrician malpractice insurance is $250,000," Bard said. "Some people can go over [to St. Louis] and it's almost $100,000 less over there. You can move across the river and it's almost like a year's salary."

What's reason for high rates?

But with so few verdicts against doctors in Madison County, why do the insurance companies charge doctors so much?

"Madison County, St. Clair, Cook County, our rates are the highest, the same, in those three areas because our losses are the greatest in those three areas," said Dr. Alfred Clementi, a director of the state medical society's insurance group, which insures most of Madison County's and the state's doctors.

He said only eight verdicts against doctors in the last eight years seemed low to him. But those are the only verdicts the Verdict Reporter and the Illinois State Bar Association, working with the Madison County court clerk, were able to find.

Many verdicts get overturned

Madison County is also well-known for the high verdicts juries there come up with against corporations in class-action, asbestos and product liability cases, such as the $10 billion verdict rendered against Phillip Morris in 2003. That is on appeal before the Illinois Supreme Court.

Trial lawyers note many of the oversized verdicts get reversed on appeal.

But Clementi said those high verdicts do not affect the insurance rates he sets for doctors.

Bush will also propose limits on lawsuits against corporations, but those likewise won't help Madison County's doctors.

"My own thoughts are that if there is a 'hellhole,' it's not where facts are made public before a jury and they make a fair decision," said Kevin Conway, president of of the Illinois Trial Lawyers' Association. "A hellhole to me is where someone secretly decides to kill people so that they can make more profit."