Due Process....absolutely for my cronies ...they deserve a fair trial!
Trial by jury for the little guy - nah, don't think so...that wouldn't be fair
---Audio provided by National Public Radio
Ask yourself these three questions that mainstream media rarely does:
Who are the forces behind Tort Reform?
Center for Justice & Democracy and Citizens for Corporate Accountability and Individual Rights
What do they stand to gain?
Followthemoney.org to see who's funding your elected officials' campaigns in South Carolina
Opensecrets.org to see which corporate entities drive policy in South Carolina
What will the impact on ordinary people be?
Consumer Resources
"Well, they fooled me. I believed that the insurance companies really were losing money and needed to raise premiums, although I believed it was part of the same old story, relived from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Stock prices were down, interest rates were down, and insurers were losing money on their investments. They wanted to make it up, as they always had before, on the underwriting side."
Ken Suggs, TRIAL, October 2005 / Volume 41, Issue 10
Big Corporations and Their Powerful CEOs Say the Legal System Is In Crisis. They claim that lawyers and "frivolous" lawsuits are clogging the courts, bankrupting large corporations and costing our economy thousands of jobs.
The Real Crisis: Your Rights Are Under Attack
In fact, the real reason these special interests support so-called tort "reform" is so they can limit the rights of regular Americans to hold them accountable when they cause harm. They don’t want to be held accountable, because it costs them money and reduces their profits.
Lawsuits Level the Playing Field for All Americans
In courtrooms across the nation, the innocent victims of corporate negligence and medical errors are allowed to face their opponents on a level playing field. Citizen juries make the courtroom the only place where every-day Americans stand on equal footing with powerful special interests. Any "reform" that shuts the doors of the courtroom or limits the power of a jury removes important rights guaranteed to all Americans by the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
There is no crisis :
Federal Cases are Dropping
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts reported that between 2002 and 2003 tort actions in U.S. courts dropped by 28%.
State Lawsuit Filings and Civil Trials are Decreasing
In 2004, the National Center on State Courts found that the number of tort filings dropped 5% since 1993. The Department of Justice found that the number of civil trials in state courts dropped 47% between 1992 and 2001. They also found that the number of tort cases decreased 31.8% in the same period.
Damage Awards are Decreasing
According to the U.S Dept. of Justice, the trend in damage awards in tort cases - the compensation awarded by a jury of their peers when they are harmed through no fault of their own- is down. After adjusting for inflation, the average personal injury award dropped 56.3% between 1992 and 2001 to $28,000.
Medical Malpractice Filings are Decreasing While the Number of Doctors are Increasing
Tort "reformers" say that lawsuits are driving doctors out of business, but the facts say otherwise. The National Center on State Courts reported that the medical malpractice filings have fallen by 1% since 1998. Meanwhile, the number of physicians increased.
If lawsuits are down and jury awards are down, where is the crisis? In fact, there IS no lawsuit crisis! Fight back and educate Congress and the public about the real crisis – the attack on is on your rights!
For more information on Corporate-backed Tort Reform and how it restricts citizens' rights, visit www.PeopleOverProfits.org.
A $250,000 cap on non-economic damages – the only compensation a jury can provide for an injury itself as opposed to reimbursement for the injured person’s out-of-pocket expenses – is unfair to the most severely injured victims of medical malpractice. It would discriminate against women, children and seniors, while doing nothing to lower health care costs or doctors’ premiums.
• Caps in healthcare liability cases are unfair to the most severely injured, but protects the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
SC Legislators supporting so-called "tort reform" say they just want to limit frivolous lawsuits, but their proposed cap on non-economic damages would apply to all victims, regardless of how severe the injury or how bad the mistake by the doctor, hospital or drug maker. In practice, that means only the most meritorious lawsuits would be affected, not frivolous ones. That’s because it’s only in the most egregious cases of malpractice injuries that a jury votes to provide compensation greater than the proposed cap.
The tort reform movement is associated with a network of organizations, such as the Heritage Foundation, the Washington Legal Foundation, the Cato Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council. All are part of the self-described "conservative movement."
"For the last 15 years, insurance companies, manufacturers of dangerous prod-ucts and chemicals, the tobacco industry and other major industries have been engaged in a nationwide assault on the civil justice system. In nearly every state and in Congress, corporations and their insurers have waged a relentless cam-paign to change the laws that give sick and injured consumers the ability to hold their offenders responsible for the injuries they cause. . .
Since 1991, ‘tort reform’ advocates have set up dozens of tax-exempt groups . . . to plant their ‘lawsuit abuse’ message in the media and the public consciousness, and to influence legislation, the judiciary and jurors. These groups claim to speak for average Americans and represent themselves as grassroots citizens groups determined to protect consumer interests. But their tax filings and funding sources indicate that they actually represent major corporations and industries seeking to escape liability for the harm they cause consumers -- whether it be from defective products, medical malpractice, securities scams, insurance fraud, employment discrimination or environmental pollution. These organizations hide their pro-business agenda behind consumer-friendly names like Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, Stop Lawsuit Abuse, Lawsuit Abuse Watch, and People for a FAIR Legal System."
"The CALA [Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse] Files –
The Secret Campaign by Big Tobacco and Other Major Industries to Take Away your Rights,"
a report by the Center for Justice and Democracy and Public Citizen 3
Political Money Line (http://www.politicalmoneyline.com/) highlighted in February 2005 the U.S. Chamber and its so-called "Institute for Legal Reform", a lobbying group, reported combined spending of $53.38 million for lobbying the Executive and Legislative branches during 2004. According to the watchdog website, "This is the largest twelve-month amount reported spent by any group." The Chamber reported spending $20,060,000 in the first six months of 2004 and $8,780,000 in the last six months of 2004. They paid forty-five lobbyists in the last six months of 2004 to lobby on thirty-two issue areas, including "Trade, Small Business, Labor, Healthcare, Defense, Appropriations, Tort Reform and other areas. The Chamber has taken a lead role in the so-called tort reform movement. It sponsors the euphemistically-named Institute for Legal Reform a 501(c)6 organization, and Legal Reform Now, a "coalition" of business associations, think tanks and "legal reform" groups. It also sponsored The November Fund, a 527 committee that opposes "frivolous lawsuits" and trial lawyers and ran negative campaign advertisements against John Kerry's running mate John Edwards - a trial lawyer - during the 2004 presidential race.
"Tort reform is a disguised entitlement for wealthy corporations, medical professionals, and the liability insurance industry. The obscured fact is that injured parties aren't going to pay either way because injured parties have no money. It's only a question of whether the plaintiffs long term needs are going to be paid by the defendant corporation, hospital, doctor, or insurance company, as they would under our current system, or whether they'll be covered by welfare, food stamps, and Medicaid -- all of which are funded by taxes and increased debt. That's the real tort reform trade-off. The tortfeasors and their insurers pass the bill off to the tax-paying public, whom they duped into supporting tort reform in the first place.
The receptiveness of the American public to the arguments of tort system critics is, on the surface, bizarre. After all, the critics represent the interests of insurance companies, large corporations, negligent doctors and tortfeasors... hardly a popular crowd. But when one looks at how the opposing arguments have been framed, the publics response is not surprising. Why? Because the tort reformers have tied their position to the immediate self-interest of the average voting-age American, while the defenders of the tort system (already laboring under the handicap of being one of the few groups held in less esteem by the public than insurers, corporations, and doctors) have not. The anti-tort reformers arguments are valid and their facts are solid." by Richard G. Halpern, Halpern Group.
Medical Malpractice Crisis in the Lowcountry?
Hardly, according to articles published in The Post and Courier since January 2005. In fact, the health care industry is booming. The SC legislature has approved increased spending for new facility construction and has changed state policy to allow for increased numbers of new hospital beds in the lowcountry.
MUSC credits nearly 11 million in profits from the first half of fiscal year 2004-2005 to increased numbers of patients and reducing their health care costs. MUSC anticipates their expansion will accomodate more inpatient business by providing 156 more beds and allow for another 100,000 outpatient admissions. If MUSC hospital's patient growth and financial projections are correct, phase 2 of construction will begin in 2009 adding between 300 and 350 more beds.
The most iminent health care crisis stems from conflict between Roper St. Francis Healthcare and East Cooper Regional Medical Center who both are grabbing for the healthcare dollar of residents in the East Cooper area. Roper is completing a $77.4 million expansion in downtown Charleston and proposes to spend $90 million on the East Cooper project.
Shands HealthCare, a for-profit health care system and publisher of Physicians Practice Digest, cites South Carolina as one of the top five physician-friendly states. These physician-friendly states have low physician density, competitive insurance markets, and relatively high reimbursement rates. The South, in general, is considered the highest paying region in the U.S. for physicians. States that were listed by the American Medical Association as being in a malpractice crisis were disqualified for designation of physician-friendly.
For further reading about the medical industry and the business climate in the lowcountry, visit these articles at The Post and Courier's archives:
Follow The Money - MUSC works to keep research funds flowing as companies move projects - JONATHAN MAZE , 8/29/05
Expanded ER Up and Running -
Private giving to MUSC a record -
Panel to study malpractice issues again - JONATHAN MAZE
East Cooper courts public in its campaign for new hospital - JONATHAN MAZE
Medical construction law to get checkup -
Hospital expansion approved -
Roper submits plans for new hospital -
Hospitals gear up for political campaign - JONATHAN MAZE
Grand vision for research -
MEDICAL MELEE -
Trident expansion -
Hospital project formally begins
Doctors earn more in S.C. -
Hospital bottom lines shaped by location, services -
East Cooper plans to build $160 million hospital -
New East Cooper health care clash possibly looms - JONATHAN MAZE
Roper plans Mt. Pleasant hospital -
State reconsiders hospital bed allocation policy -
MUSC hospital sees profit boost -
Insurors Say Malpractice Caps Will Not Limit Physician Premiums
GE Medical Protective, the nation's largest medical malpractice insurer, now admits that caps on compensation for non-economic losses in lawsuits will not lower doctors' malpractice insurance premiums. Insurance industry and medical association proponents of the measure claimed that caps would lower premiums for doctors. A report issued last March by GE Medical Protective repeated the claim. Now the insurer finally admits the truth, that "capping non-economic damages will show loss savings of 1.0%." Carlton Carl, ATLA Director of Media Relations.
Georgia Court Overturns Chamber of Commerce-Backed “Tort Reform”
September 23, 2005. The Superior Court of Gwinnett County in the State of Georgia overturned a key element of the recently-passed Georgia bill to limit access to the courts. was held unconstitutional because it violated the right of access to the courts. ATLA President Ken Suggs applauded the court's decision saying, "so-called 'tort reforms' like this one are blatant attempts by big corporations to tilt the legal playing field in their favor and against average Americans. For full text and the ruling.
