New gov’t statistics contradict argument for damage caps
(3/2/2005) -- For most of us, the claims our opponents make that there has been an “explosion” of lawsuits and ever-increasing “jackpot” verdicts have never squared with our experiences.

Now there is new data from the federal government that should prove once and for all that their claims are false.

Newly released government statistics compiled by the Health and Human Services Department reveal that not only has there not been a rapid increase in the number of suits--there has been at best a modest rise over the last decade--but that payments for malpractice claims against doctors and other medical professionals have turned sharply downward, falling 8.9 percent last year.

According to the insurance industry, the jumps in premiums are completely appropriate. “The insurers were catching up, getting to where they should have been,” said Larry Smarr, the president of the Physician Insurers Association of America. Experts say companies needed to raise rates because they are trying to recoup their losses after unsound business practices in the stock market boom in the 1990s and the subsequent stock market drop.

So next time someone tells you that the only solution for rising rates is a cap, remember that caps benefit the same group whose unsafe business practices caused the problem in the first place: the insurance industry.

PROUD TO BE A PENNSYLVANIA TRIAL LAWYER!