Lawsuit Reforms Vital to Better Health of Pennsylvanians

The following are remarks made by Marilyn Heine, MD, president elect of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, at a Pennsylvania state capitol news conference on March 28, 2011, concerning reforming the legal system to ensure continued access to high quality medical care for all Pennsylvanians.

Good Morning.

Thank you for the opportunity to share with you a few reasons it is imperative to reform our legal system to ensure continued access to high quality medical care for all Pennsylvanians.

We’ve all seen the barrage of personal injury lawyers’ ads on billboards, television, and telephone book covers asking, “Have you been injured?” and “Did you have a ‘less than perfect’ outcome?” They offer to make someone rich simply by suing.

Through constant repetition of these types of advertisements, personal injury lawyers have skillfully changed the way Americans view personal responsibility. They have convinced many that when something doesn’t go the way they’d like, that “they’ve been injured” and someone else is to blame.

Everyone in this room has examples of how lawsuit abuse negatively impacts each of our types of work.

For physicians, personal injury lawyers are strangling patient care. The motive of a personal injury lawyer is the “contingency fee,” and it is taking its toll on physicians and our patients.

Young physicians who graduate from Pennsylvania’s medical training programs often leave to practice elsewhere. Physicians in private practice in Pennsylvania find it nearly impossible to recruit new associates. The cost of medical liability insurance is higher here than in much of the country.

Furthermore, despite what our opponents say about Pennsylvania’s medical liability climate, lawsuit abuse continues to erode the clinical practice of medicine.

As I stand here this morning, physicians across Pennsylvania are ordering MRIs, CAT scans, PET scans, biopsies, and other tests for one simple reason…the fear of litigation. This drives up the cost of health care for all of us.

The overwhelming majority of claims brought against physicians are dropped, dismissed, withdrawn, or found in favor of the physician. Yet, these claims are costly to defend. And time spent on defense is time that a physician could have been caring for other patients.

Personal injury lawyers have a huge error rate. Their error rate is crippling patient care by increasing costs and decreasing access.

Broad based liability reform in Pennsylvania is good for all Pennsylvanians from patients, physicians and hospitals, to employers and civic organizations, to the girl scouts and our little league teams.

The benefit of broad legal reforms will be felt by all of us because each of us has been the victim of Pennsylvania’s out-of-control legal system. Everything we buy has a higher price tag due to lawsuit abuse. Some call this a “tort tax.”

The only ones who won’t benefit from fixing a broken legal system are those who created the need for reform in the first place…personal injury lawyers.

I respectfully ask our legislature to do the right thing. For the better health of all Pennsylvanians, restore common sense to our legal system.

Thank you.