Connecticut Voices for Civil Justice

The current wide perception of a crisis in both the availability and cost of liability insurance echoes the “crises” of the mid 70s, early 80s and 90s. Then, as now, all types of liability lines were effected, including the cost of insurance for municipal governments. Interest rates and insurance industry business practices were proven largely to blame, but inevitably the tort system came under heavy attack as the sole presumed culprit.

Then as now, insurance, business, medical and manufacturing interests clamored for limitations on lawsuits and damages. Certain elements in government and a lazy press picked up on these claims, fueling the controversy by publishing highly selective and misleading accounts of large verdicts that seemed to lend truth to the criticisms.

Times have hardly changed.

If tort reformers would just admit that their current agenda is an effort to assist the insurance industry in managing its own risks, it just might be less offensive. But that candor could cause a further negative impact on the industry’s reputation, if that’s possible. The general public would tend to look with even more suspicion on an industry that purports to manage everyone else’s risk when it can’t even manage its own.

Now, as then, the industry with the problem isn’t the medical community, nor is it the law. Again, it’s the insurance industry, and again the problem has been self-inflicted. It’s certainly apparent, though, that the doctors are salivating over the fact that limiting verdicts and other tort reforms may greatly diminish their chances of being sued. Of course, it certainly won’t help those they’ve grievously harmed.

“Lawmakers could do more to reduce premiums by improving the structure of the insurance marketplace, said Frank A. Sloan, an economics professor at Duke University who specializes in health policy and management. Medical malpractice “…is the most cyclical health policy there is,” Professor Sloan said, adding, “There are periods of time when premiums stop going up, and then nobody’s interested, then again we get a crisis and everybody says juries are terrible.” Richard A. Oppel Jr., New York Times, 1/17/03

This is the fourth “crisis” in thirty years. Again, there are the frenetic calls for tort reform. When will proponents and their legislative allies grow tired of this charade? Anytime soon is doubtful.

So if tort reform passes, who benefits? Certainly not the doctors. They may be lucky to see a temporary fluctuation in their rates. Now, as then, the insurance industry will clearly be the biggest beneficiary.

This nationwide campaign was carefully orchestrated with the doctors out front. I suspect that the insurance industry mesmerized the doctors with the promise of immunity. Why else would these caregivers use scare tactics against the public? They succeeded in passing tort reform in several states, but as we have seen the doctors did not benefit.