Personal Injury Law

Defending Illinois Medical Malpractice Victims Requires Year-Round Advocacy

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

This blog is consistently filled with information on the latest developments in the public debate around tort reform. Medical malpractice law is seemingly always in the news as insurance companies and other big business interests continue to pressure lawmakers to enact statutes taking away rights of legal victims. Fortunately, there remains a cadre of advocates, who fight for the rights of medical victims by countering the mistaken assertions made by these special interests.

Recently the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association (ITLA) published a report that summarized the recent letters sent by the President of the ITLA to local newspapers. These letters, many of which were reported on this blog, made factual and logical assertions debunking many of the false claims made in support of so-called ?tort reform.?

For example, some letters have pointed out that, contrary to certain claims, there is an oversaturation of doctors in the Chicago-area. This means that there are more doctors here than would otherwise be needed based on the population. The doctors who leave the area typically do so to find work in places where there is less saturation. Besides that, most other new doctors who leave do so because they never planned on practicing in Illinois from the start. Medical malpractice lawsuits have nothing to do with it.

Other letters have spread accurate information about a wide range of topics from defensive medicine to the constitutional foundations of right to jury trials.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on February 18, 2011 (boomark / email).