D.C. Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Gabriel Assaad : Assaad Law, PLLC: D.C. Injury Law Journal

That is just ridiculous.  In a CNN article by Stephanie Smith posted October 13, 2009, Ms. Smith quotes a study from the American Journal of Medicine that found that 62% of bankruptcies in 2007 were a result of medical debt compared to 8% in 1981.  If that is not reason enough for health care reform, I do not know what is.

To live in one of the greatest countries and to have that statistic is embarrassing.  I am sure that the 62% of bankruptcies were hard working individuals that could not afford their insurance premiums due to the continuous rise of said premiums.  As insurance companies are making record profits, the injured, sick, unprotected individual is suffering and taking on a debt that he can't refuse.  What is his/her choice, not to treat the cancer? not to remove the appendix? just die.

I pray that our government can come together in this time to find a solution so that we as a country can brag to the rest of the world that we do have the best health care system and not have statistics such as the one above.  And for all those out there that that believe that we need medical malpractice reform, show me the hard data that directly correlates medical malpractice to insurance premiums.  Oh yeah, and I would like that data from a source that is not the insurance companies or the many organizations insurance companies retain come up with such false data.

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A doctor in Maryland uses scare tactics to convince citizens that medical malpractice reform is necessary.  In an editorial in the Baltimore Sun, Dr. Hass wrote:

At a time when the nation's economy is slumping and the governor is proposing to mandate that Maryland hospitals and physicians provide more free care to lower-income families, it's ironic that the state House Judiciary Committee, led by trial lawyer Joseph F. Vallario Jr., is proposing legislation to roll back the reforms in the state's medical malpractice insurance policies enacted in 2004 ("Attack of the trial lawyers," editorial, Feb. 17).

Such a rollback would ultimately result in higher malpractice insurance rates for doctors and hospitals, higher health care costs for consumers, higher health insurance premiums for businesses and, of course, higher incomes for well-heeled trial lawyers.

Perhaps the "attack" of these lawyers on physicians and hospitals will only abate when enough doctors have left Maryland and enough hospitals have closed that they no longer have anyone left to sue.

There is numerous articles that have discredited the fallacy that medical malpractice lawsuits cause higher medical malpractice premiums, health care costs to consumers, and an exodus of doctors from sates.  In fact, look at California, they have had medical malpractice caps for over 20 years and there is no change compared to other states that have not passed tort reform.

In DC, there are no caps.  The last time I checked, there are no shortage of doctors or exodus.  In fact, the DC Metro area is overly saturated with physicians to the point where physicians' salaries are less here than many other parts of the country for a lack of demand.  With respect to higher premiums, if you look at the data, medical malpractice cases account for less than 1% of the health care costs in the country. 

The author's use of attack is indicative of the lack of facts to support the position taken by thus doctor.  This doctor should look at the insurance companies as for the cause of higher premiums an look at the insurance companies books before he blindly blames the "attacking" lawyer.

I suggest to this doctor or anyone who has the same viewpoint to pray that no one in their family is on  the receiving end of being malpracticed upon.

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