Tort reform will never be enacted in the U.S. unless lawyers are banned from State and Federal Government elected office....Just saying!

Story #1

Read all 'bout how the trail lawyers that run NY State Government peed-the-bed when Gov. Cuomo even thought about Medical Malpractice tort reform!

The sharks vs. the gov

Last Updated: 12:14 AM, January 22, 2012

Posted: March 21, 2011

New York stands on the brink of taking its first-ever serious steps toward genuine tort reform -- and the benefits could be huge.

Provided Gov. Cuomo stands firm.

Because the ambulance chasers and their legislative allies -- led by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Weitz & Luxenberg) -- are at full throttle, screaming about the supposed triumph of "special interests." (They're ones to talk!)

Trust us: It's all about billable hours.

As part of its 79 recommendations to realize $2.3 billion in savings, Cuomo's Medicaid task force called for a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical-malpractice cases -- i.e., "emotional pain and suffering." It also proposed an indemnity fund for brain-damaged infants.

Together, the two moves are expected to produce $700 million in Medicaid savings. But they also mean a potentially significant loss of income for tort lawyers, who love to boast of their multimillion-dollar jury verdicts and settlements -- of which they get a very healthy slice.

No wonder the state Bar Association wasted no time in reaffirming its "long-standing opposition to caps on non-economic damages in medical-malpractice or any other tort action."

Trial lawyers aren't accustomed to making concessions; they're used to Albany filling their outstretched hands -- as then-Gov. David Paterson did last year, when he quietly slipped through a plan to lift a quarter-century cap on medical-malpractice awards.

Fact is, just the threat of malpractice suits in litigation-happy New York has sent doctors' insurance premiums soaring, not to mention hospital costs -- which hit $1.6 billion in 2009 just for lawsuit-related expenses. Those premiums, in turn, have driven away doctors, particularly obstetricians.

To the lawyers, of course, this isn't about their share of the take -- it's about "the ability of victims to be fairly compensated." Ha!

Last week, the two legislative houses addressed the issue in starkly different ways in their budget bills: The GOP-controlled Senate preserved both med-mal measures; Silver's Assembly ditched the cap and proposed the trial lawyers' changes to the indemnity fund, effectively making it unworkable.

It's up to the gov to save his reform.

New York can't afford to let this historic opportunity slip by.

Story #2

Just what you thought would happen, and it aint just in NY either!

Tort Reform Betrayed in New York

Matthew McKillip

From The Foundry 

March 28, 2011 at 2:00 pm

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s surprising push for tort reform came to an end Sunday night. The latest New York budget plan eliminates the proposed $250,000 “cap on non-economic damages for medical malpractice awards” that would have saved the state an estimated $384 million. Cuomo, a Democrat, abandoned the plan even after he accepted the Medicaid Redesign Team’s proposal.

The setback leaves New York’s blundering Medicaid program unreformed and according to Mississippi Governor Hailey Barbour, no meaningful changes can be made to until someone in the Governor’s Mansion follows through on tort reform.

“The first rule [of tort reform],” Barbour told The Heritage Foundation last March, “is that you cannot pass real tort reform unless it is led by a governor.”

The need for tort reform is obvious: New Yorkers have felt the burden of soaring premiums and the loss of doctors from the state. Bill Hammond of the New York Daily News wrote presents a specific case: “It’s not unusual for New York ob-gyns to shell out more in premiums than they take home in pay – which is why dozens either quit delivering babies or flee the state whenever there’s another rate increase.”

Not enough, though, has been made of how tort reform, or stopping “lawsuit abuse” as Barbour prefers to call it, will keep jobs in New York and attract new business. Barbour related how in 2007, Toyota chose to build a Prius assembly plant in Mississippi and “said publicly they would not have chosen Mississippi if we had not passed tort reform.” Barbour’s experience is not an outlier– economist Lawrence McQuillan reported that there is “57 percent greater job growth in the tort reform states.”

While Cuomo’s 2% budget cuts are an admirable step towards fiscal sanity, he must remember that New York ranks 49^th in tort reform liability. One of Cuomo’s first acts in office was to appoint a Medicaid Redesign Team and it would be a disservice to his constituents if he never returns to the issue of law suit abuse.