Personal Injury Law

Medical Malpractice Caps Hurt Victims and Help Insurance Companies

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

A woman went to the hospital to have her fallopian tubes tied and left with two punctured holes in her bladder. This near-death experience resulted in the woman having chronic pain and a flesh eating virus. The victim couldn?t move, speak and she had no muscle control. Her medical expenses for the process totaled $1.9 million. Medical malpractice lawyers state that if she hadn?t received the settlement she would be homeless or living in public housing. The woman fortunately filed the medical malpractice lawsuit in the state of Iowa where no medical malpractice caps exist, despite the lobbying of the insurance companies. While insurance companies boast that caps will lower the cost of health care, history shows that the medical malpractice caps do not lower insurance rates for doctors or patients. They simply make more money for insurance corporations. Statistics show that malpractice insurance profits are 24 percent higher in states with caps on malpractice damages than in states who do not have medical malpractice caps. Medical malpractice attorneys know the cost of bringing a case to trial, and due to this only take those that are meritorious. This helps dispute the insurance companies argument that medical malpractice suits are too commonplace and that caps are needed to decrease the costs. To learn more about the medical malpractice case, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on January 18, 2010 (boomark / email).