Personal Injury Law

New AAJ Campaign Tells Congress to ?Put Patients First?

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

The American Association for Justice ?AAJ? launched the first phase of a nationwide ad campaign to educate lawmakers about the epidemic of preventable medical errors and how tort law reform will not lower the cost of health care. According to the Institute of Medicine, 98,000 people are killed each year by preventable medical errors. President of the AAJ Anthony Tarricone stated that, ?Our health care system is clearly broken, and if we are serious about improving it, we need to fix preventable medical errors.? He added that patient?s health should come before the profits of insurance companies and that there would be fewer victims that needed legal help if we simply reduced medical errors. The Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget Office have both said that they have found no evidence of so called ?defensive medicine.? Congress must stop using patients? rights as bargaining chips during this debate. To read more about the preventable medical errors, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on September 23, 2009 (boomark / email).