Public Citizens, a consumer watchdog group, reported in a study that for the third straight year, payments on medical malpractice claims are at the lowest since the federal government’s National Practitioner Data Bank began tracking in 1990.
According to Public Citizen between three and seven Americans die from medical errors for every one patient who receives a payment for a malpractice claim. There were 11,037 payments in 2008, 30% lower than the average in previous years. The value of the payments in 2008 was lowest or the second lowest on record depending on the method used to adjust for inflation.
According to David Arkush, director of Public Citizens’s Congress Watch division “Anyway you measure it, medical liability accounts for less than 1% of the country’s health care cost and the vast majority of victims receive no compensation whatsoever. These are people who died or were left with serious permanent injuries, out of work, with enormous medical cost for the rest of their lives and they and their families are getting nothing from the doctors or the hospitals responsible”.
A 1999 study by the Institute of Medicine concluded that between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans die every year because of avoidable medical errors. That is unacceptable. Yet, every year more and more states enact legislation shielding healthcare providers from liability. The medical community spends millions of dollars in lobbying politicians who then feel compelled to pass laws for the medical community’s benefit. Limited liability breeds a lack of accountability. Lack of accountability creates lax standards. Its time to push our lawmakers to protect the citizens of their state and of this nation and hold the medical community accountable for their negligence and not give them a free pass at our expense.
Richard J. Arsenault, 2011
