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Dr. Coburn Calls for Medical Liability and Tort Reform
April 13, 2005 - Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), a practicing physician who has delivered nearly 500 babies while serving in public office, today joined his colleagues and doctors across the nation to urge the Senate to pass meaningful medical liability and tort reform.
“As a family practice doctor specializing in obstetrics, I know first-hand how frivolous lawsuits are driving up health care costs, limiting options for patients and increasing the number of Americans without health insurance. The high cost of malpractice insurance is driving many qualified doctors out of business in small and medium size towns across America and forcing many patients to travel greater distances to access quality health care,” Dr. Coburn said.
“Sadly, a handful of politicians in Washington, D.C. would rather protect their access to trial lawyer campaign money than help the American people access affordable health care. It is wrong for a few Senators to continue to block common sense medical liability reform. Frivolous lawsuits benefit no one besides personal injury lawyers,” Dr. Coburn said.
Dr. Coburn explained that while some lawsuits are legitimate, statistics show most liability lawsuits are entirely frivolous. In fact, 70 percent – nearly 3 out of 4 – medical liability suits filed are dismissed before ever reaching the courtroom but the cost of litigating those cases costs each American family about $1,200 of their insurance premium costs.
In the state of Oklahoma, insurance premiums for physicians rose 60 percent in 2003 and are projected to increase a total of 82.8 percent over the next 3 years. As a result, many physicians are leaving Oklahoma, especially from rural areas, to practice medicine in states like Texas that have passed medical liability reform and where they have already begun to see liability insurance premiums fall.
Dr. Coburn added, “The medical liability crisis is only one aspect of tort crisis in this country. If we are going to pass medical liability reform, or any tort reform, we have to look honestly at what created our litigious society. Frivolous lawsuits are a social dysfunction, not merely an economic or political issue. Small businesses, teachers and doctors live under the constant threat of a devastating lawsuit because we have allowed trial lawyers to sort out what rational people used to sort out for themselves. In our everyday personal and business relationships we have chosen to be regulated by a legal code rather than a moral code. Lawsuits become a first resource, not last resort, when the basic standards of decency governing human relationships – honesty, charity and personal responsibility – break down.”
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