Why don't the doctors get mad?

Another state reporting that surprise, tort reform didn't have any impact on doctor's medical malpractice insurance premiums. After passing a $350,000 cap on noneconomic damages and other restrictions on med mal lawsuits, Georgia is now about to undertake more legislation--this time, at least, targeted at the actual problem, the insurance companies--to bring some relief to the docs, after discovering that six of the the state's top med mal insurers had jacked up premiums even further after the law passed in 2003, some by as much as a third.

Every time I read one of these stories, I wonder why the doctors lobby doesn't march on the state capitals about insurance reform, rather than targeting injured patients who occasionally sue. Probably I can answer my own question. Aside from the fact that a lot of the med mal insurers are owned by doctors, I suspect that even if the doctors didn't have to pay for any med mal insurance at all, they'd still hate lawyers and the injured patients they represent. Tort reform for them isn't just about money. Still, the doctors do look kinda dumb for lobbying for all this tort reform and then having only the insurance companies benefit from it--just as they have at least two or three times in the past. Why don't they ever learn?

Comments

[Ted]

Only two out of three branches of government have approved of tort reform in Georgia. Doctors aren't getting mad because they know that trial lawyers will ask the judiciary to act as a super-legislature and repeal the reforms. (In case you haven't noticed, your other blog is lobbying for the Georgia courts to do just that.) That risk means that insurers have to assume that the reforms haven't passed yet and charge accordingly. The trial lawyers then have the chutzpah to claim that reform doesn't work when they're doing everything in their power to subvert the reform.

In states where the judiciary doesn't have the power to undo reform (such as Texas) or where the judiciary has signed off on reform, reform has lowered insurance expenses and thus insurance rates.

[Webdude]

So in states where tort reformers claim immediate benefits from draconian anti-patient 'reforms', such as where new insurance companies supposedly flood into a market following new laws, its really that the insurers in that case are so stupid and careless that they react before they even know if the courts will uphold the reforms? Yet it was reform of the insurance industry in California that had an effect on premiums and not the earlier 'tort reform' measures.

Let's take a look at your hypothesis in the real world, by taking a state where the insurance industry owns the appellate courts and where 'tort reform' has been on the books for many years. Does Michigan sound about right, Ted? Okay, now let's look at an area of practice where 'tort reform' is supposedly going to save the world from high premiums. OB/GYN? Just how low are those Michigan premiums, Ted, either in terms of annual increases since 'tort reform' became firmly established or as compared to other states?

[Ted]

I don't respond to anonymous hit-and-run commenters who are simply repeating ATLA talking points that I've refuted elsewhere.