The Fallacy of Tort Reform

Cyrus Dugger

The Fallacy of Tort Reform

A great post I came across on MyDD:

The Fallacy of Tort Reform , by joetalarico

Not a whole lot new has happened, which gives me the opportunity to do what I like best. Having been accurately depicted by George Will as a narcissist who believes that people actually care about my ramblings, I will ramble on, today about tort reform. Being an anesthesiologist for almost 20 years, I have been involved in medical malpractice and personal injury cases, both from the defense and plaintiff's sides.

Regarding medical malpractice, as a physician, the overwhelming majority of my colleagues have bought the line of the AMA that tort reform equals caps on non-economic damages. I am not one of those. History has shown, in California and more recently in Florida that this is not the answer. In California, caps instituted in the late 1970's had little effect. The malpractice crisis continued until the late 1980's, when insurance reform was instituted, and insurers refunded $70 million in overcharges. To this day California malpractice premiums are below average, but not because of caps.
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Posted at 2:38 PM, Dec 20, 2006 in
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The propaganda of the insurance companies has for too long been accepted as truth, when it is, in reality, fabricated from myth, hyperboly and distortion. Nothing will stop them until the public is fully informed about the incessant and oppressive desire for unlimited power and profits, and their willingness to use any means to keep unlimited power and profit. I have tried to document the propaganda and supplant it with the truth in my book, America's Tunnel Vision--How Insurance Companies' Propaganda Is Corrupting Medicine and Law. www.StopMedicalError.com.

So where's the fallacy? The only fallacy I saw was "Malpractice companies, like other insurance companies, essentially have a license to steal. They have a pure profit motive; collect as high premiums as possible while paying out the least possible benefits," which fails to note that the majority of malpractice insurance companies are nonprofit mutual insurance companies run by doctors insuring themselves.

Is the only qualification for "great post" that it agree with you?

Does this mean you concede that for-profit insurers do have the aformentioned pure-profit motive?