White House Announces Funding for States to Enhance Patient Safety, Prevent Medical Malpractice Lawsuits
The Obama administration has announced a $25 million grants to states to help them evaluate methods to discourage “frivolous" medical malpractice lawsuits. The program will offer states grants that they can use to identify ways to improve patient safety, as well as alternatives to medic malpractice lawsuits, like admission of errors and apologies by hospitals and doctors.
Early indications are that the President, who might have been attempting to woo Republican support for his health care reforms by this move, hasn’t really succeeded in doing so. Republicans have been quick to pooh-pooh the program, saying that it’s too weak an effort to get rid of frivolous lawsuits. The program has also been criticized by public interest groups who believe that the program will do nothing to win Republican support while bartering away the rights of injured patients, which would be dangerous.
As a New Jersey medical malpractice lawyer who constantly comes across patients who have suffered a range of injures from the carelessness of health care professionals, I firmly believe that we don’t try to win lawmaker support by signing away the rights of injured victims to receive justice. The medical malpractice debate won't go away any time soon, and the funding that has been announced will not really help move the debate forward to its logical and rightful conclusion - medical malpractice lawsuits have little impact on health care costs.
We are not going to have affordable healthcare for all in this country by limiting justice for those unfortunate few who are injured by medical negligence.
Fact: Lower malpractice insurance costs would actually have a minimal impact on healthcare spending. Insurance costs, even at the rates that they are at now, are actually not that big an expense for doctors who continue to be the most highly paid professionals in the country.
