Bush and his special interest allies trust politicians to make a one-size-fits-all decision about all cases, regardless of the facts. They don't trust juries made up of people like you, your friends and your neighbors to decide based on the facts and evidence in each individual case.

Caps do not stop frivolous lawsuits. Caps only affect the cases in which a jury of twelve people heard all the facts of the case and decided the injury was so severe and life-altering and the misconduct so blatant that a patient injured by the errors of a health care provider should receive more than $250,000. By definition, that is not a frivolous lawsuit, but a very serious one. Bush wants to limit the rights of medical patients when they are very seriously injured.

Doctors, hospitals, HMOs and nursing homes need to take responsibility for their mistakes just like everyone else. The best solution to this insurance premium crisis is a cap on the outrageous amount of money HMOs and insurance companies can charge doctors for medical malpractice insurance. That means insurance reform.

For example, the Bush proposals place an unfair limit on what a ten-year-old child can receive when she is left in a wheelchair as a result of the misconduct of someone else and on the rights of a family in which a parent dies as a result of abuse or neglect in a nursing home, but no limit on what the insurance industry can charge.

Medical Malpractice Facts

Doctors are not fleeing states in droves, despite increasingly frantic and unsupported claims from the American Medical Association, the insurance industry and their allies. Independent assessments by state officials and the media have found that the number of doctors in many states including Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington, has remained stable and in most, has actually increased.

FL, Palm Beach Post Editorial, 7/16/03; OH, Toledo Blade, 7/17/04; PA, Allentown Morning Call, 4/24/04; WA, Seattle Times, 2/23/04

The 2003 Weiss Report found that despite caps on economic damages in 19 states, "most insurers continued to increase premiums (for doctors) at a rapid pace, regardless of caps." The report found that insurers failed to pass along any savings to physicians in states with caps by refusing to lower their insurance premiums, and that caps only slowed the increase in the amount of damages insurers were required to pay out.

Weiss Report, 6/3/03

Premiums are higher in states with caps than in those without. The average malpractice premium in states without caps was $35,016 in 2003. The average premium in states with caps was $40,381.

Medical Liability Monitor, 10/03

Despite claims about "defensive medicine," Americans are NOT getting the care they need. Medical errors kill as many as 98,000 Americans every year and cost as much as $29 billion, according to the Institute of Medicine.1 Other research suggests that the human toll may be far higher, with preventable errors and negligence taking the lives of 195,000 people each year.2

"To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System," Institute of Medicine, 2000

“Patient Safety in American Hospitals,” HealthGrades, July 2004, www.healthgrades.com

"America spends more on dog and cat food each year than all medical malpractice payouts combined," said FTCR president Jamie Court, author of Corporateering: How Corporate Power Steals Your Personal Freedom And What You Can Do About It.

FTRC, 7/20/04, www.consumerwatchdog.org/healthcare/pr/pr004485.php3

"Malpractice costs amounted to an estimated $24 billion in 2002, but that figure represents less than 2 percent of overall health care spending. Thus, even a reduction of 25 percent to 30 percent in malpractice costs would lower health care costs by only about 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent, and the likely effect on health insurance premiums would be comparably small."

"Limiting Tort Liability for Medical Malpractice," CBO, 01/08/04

Insurance lobbyists are not interested in your access to medicine. In 2004, one drug company alone—Merck—spent over 1.7 million opposing bills such as the Pharmaceutical Market and Drug Safety Act. In 2002, the drug company spent over 7.3 million opposing the Greater Access to Affordable Pharmaceutical Act of 2001, among others.

"Merck Lobbying Reports," Political MoneyLine, 01/02—06/04