BAND AID SOLUTION TO MEDICAL
MALPRACTICE CRISIS
“Applying a band aid to a hemorrhaging wound” is how one
of my colleagues described the Democrat majority’s
legislation regarding the complex medical malpractice crisis
in New Jersey. Specialty doctors such as obstetricians and
neurosurgeons, to name just two, are rethinking their career
futures in New Jersey. Unprecedented medical malpractice
insurance premiums may make some doctors’ business practices
unprofitable for them and create a health care crisis for
New Jersey patients.
Rather than address the root of the problem, the main
focus of the Democrat bill A-50 is the creation of a premium
subsidy fund paid for by you and me. Doctors, dentists and
lawyers will contribute $50 fees annually to this fund,
Every worker in New Jersey will pay a $3 fee annually into
this fund. This money will create a $30 million per year
fund, with $10 million dedicated to help premium increases
for the hardest hit doctors, $8 million to help hospitals
cover insurance costs, $1 million to help poor pregnant
women, and $1 million to help doctors who promise to stay in
New Jersey pay their student loans.
A-50 also requires state regulators to examine insurance
rate increases of more than 15% and creates a 17 member
commission to study future reforms. A few of the other
aspects of this bill are encouraging. If a doctor is named
as a defendant in a medical malpractice action, and was
involved in no way with the claimants care, the doctor can
file an affidavit of noninvolvement that he or she was
misidentified. I have actually spoken to doctors who were
named in malpractice actions and were out of the country at
the time, and had nothing to do with the claimants care.
The bill further expands the “Good Samaritan” law to
provide immunity from civil damages to licensed health care
professionals who respond, in good faith, to a life
threatening emergency situation within a hospital. The
immunity will not cover gross negligence or willful
misconduct.
While this bill is a good start, we need to make real
efforts to get all the facts from insurance companies,
doctors, lawyers and hospitals. Doctors have tried for the
last year to influence the legislature to pass legislation
that limits their liability for non-economic damages called
“caps.” The Democrat bill, A-50, did not include caps.
Hopefully the study commission created in A-50 will do
something and not result in the promulgation of another
report doomed for dust accumulation in the State House.
This bill can be found on
www.njleg.state.nj.us/
|
