MALPRACTICE WOES

Legal hazards are a big problem in all systems of medicine

If real life played out like a Hollywood action flick, in which good conquers evil all in a couple of hours, there might be a happy ending in the battle over how to cure the nation's medical malpractice woes. After all, each side in the presidential campaign has fixed on a convenient villain.

On Monday, President Bush blamed "junk lawsuits" for driving up the cost of medicine and "running good docs out of practice." Bush pointed to rich trial lawyers as the culprits - and alluded to the fact that one of them is the Democratic vice presidential nominee. In fact, John Edwards made millions suing doctors.

The Bush campaign says frivolous lawsuits and huge jury verdicts drive up premiums for malpractice insurance, which doctors must purchase, raising health care costs for everyone. It proposes limits on certain types of damages as a cure. Edwards, the Democratic point man on the issue, opposes such caps, and blames rising health costs on insurance and drug companies, which, he charges, are Bush's allies....

Democrats - Edwards in particular - enjoy huge financial support from trial lawyers, who oppose caps on damages. Attorneys lavished $9.9 million on Edwards' race for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan campaign-finance watchdog. Republicans favor limiting damages for "pain and suffering," which are granted by juries on top of payments for actual harm. That position is backed by health providers and insurers, who have given the 2004 Bush campaign $9.5 million, according to the center.

Caps on damages may do some good. In large states that have such limits, malpractice premiums have increased less than those have in states without caps, according to a 2003 survey by Medical Liability Monitor, a newsletter that tracks malpractice trends.

The current system fails to spur health care providers to "identify, compensate (for) and reduce errors" because they fear lawsuits, according to a study released in 2002 by the Institute of Medicine, a federal advisory group. It estimated that medical errors result in more than 44,000 deaths a year. A new study by HealthGrades, a health care rating organization, said errors caused 195,000 deaths, on average, in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

Physicians often perform extra costly tests to protect themselves from suits filed by patients alleging that a medical problem was missed. The price tag? More than $60 billion a year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Fears of lawsuits and high insurance premiums are forcing some physicians to quit, move to states where premiums are more stable, or limit services. One in seven obstetrician/gynecologists have stopped delivering babies, according to a survey this summer by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

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Australia's largest State -- New South Wales -- now has a $300,000 cap on personal injury awards, which should go a long way to overcoming the legal hazards of medicine there