Joanne Doroshow Describes Tort Reform

This woman is my hero.  I’d say she’s my heroine, but then people would probably accuse me of being a drug addict.

Tort "reform" is a doozy of a misnomer. There is certainly nothing positive or beneficial about it. Tort reform laws, which now exist it nearly every state (although you'd never guess that after listening to those complaining how much we need it), make it more difficult for average people who have been injured, assaulted, or harmed in any way, to sue those responsible. The tort reform movement was created and funded by insurance companies, manufacturers of dangerous products, the tobacco industry, the medical profession, and other industries and professions. This movement is backed by enormous sums of money funneled primarily into conservative "think-tanks," public relations, polling and lobbying firms. Tort reforms always hurt patients, consumers and average people. They are also extremely dangerous for the rest of us.

Even the Congressional Budget Office, who guessed there could be "savings" from enacting national menu of brutal "tort reforms," cites studies showing that if enacted, thousands more would die every year. Some savings. What's more, chances are you already live in a state with brutal "tort reform" laws on the books. Ask the Olsen family from California or the Gourleys from Nebraska, both with severely disabled teenage boys who traveled to Washington D.C. last month to plead that Congress not do to the entire country what lawmakers already did to them.

Steven Olsen is blind and brain damaged because, as a jury ruled, he was a victim of medical negligence when he was two-years-old. He fell on a stick in the woods while hiking. Under the family's HMO plan, the hospital pumped Steven up with steroids and sent him away with a brain tumor, although his parents had asked for a CAT scan because they knew Steven was not well. (So much for "defensive medicine.") Steven Olsen came back to the hospital comatose. Had he received the $800 CAT scan, which would have detected a growing brain mass, he would have his sight and be healthy today.

Source: Joanne Doroshow: Medical Malpractice Tort Reform - We Are Already Suffering and Don't Need More