Don’t be fooled by
the label ‘tort reform’

In hearings before the Legislature it has been suggested that the current cost of obtaining medical malpractice insurance is: making it difficult for physicians to earn enough money to stay in business; forcing some doctors to go out of business; and making it difficult, if not impossible, for patients to get appointments with certain types of doctors (e.g. having to wait weeks for an appointment with a cardiologist) (see "Doctors urge state to reform insurance," Star-Bulletin, Feb. 4). However, the truth of the matter is that:

» There is no shortage of well-paid physicians in Hawaii.
» The Queen's Medical Center, and other major hospitals throughout the state, have medical staff members providing on-call cardiology services (and services in many other medical specialties) 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and must do so to maintain their accreditation with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations.
» In January of this year, there were 6,652 current individual medical licenses in Hawaii.
» The Oahu Verizon Yellow Pages contains 58 pages of advertisements for physicians.
» The median household income for Hawaii is approximately $49,775.
» The income of each adult in that average household is approximately $24,887.
» The median expected salary for a typical cardiologist in Honolulu is $300,635 -- after paying malpractice insurance (source: www.salary.com).
» The median expected salary for a typical OB-GYN in Honolulu is $230,461.
» The median expected salary for a typical radiologist in Honolulu is $304,473.
» The median expected salary for a typical physician specializing in internal medicine in Honolulu is $163,974.

Even after purchasing malpractice insurance, the average Hawaii cardiologist is still earning more than 10 times as much as each adult in the average Hawaii household. So why should patients and their families have their constitutionally guaranteed rights to trial by jury taken away in order to enable cardiologists to make more money?

It is also extremely unlikely that any positive financial impact from placing a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases would ever trickle down, and translate into lower-priced, or even more accessible, medical care for the average patient. Instead, it is much more likely that the financial windfall from the proposed $250,000 cap would merely be swallowed as additional profit by the insurance companies who sell medical malpractice insurance; little or no benefit would trickle down to Hawaii's doctors; and little or no benefit would ever be allowed to trickle even further down the food chain to Hawaii's patients and their families.

As an attorney who represents patients and their families in medical malpractice cases, I have personally witnessed the manner in which medical malpractice can devastate a family and its finances. Medical malpractice often leaves patients and their families in dire circumstances where they possess little more than their rights to a trial by jury and a stack of unpaid bills. The insurance industry's profit-motivated attacks on your rights to trial by jury have been disguised with the label "tort reform." However, when the topic of "tort reform" is discussed, don't be fooled by the misleading label.

Instead of being tricked into supporting the vague idea of "tort reform," we should all insist that our elected representatives protect and preserve our fundamental rights to trial by jury.

Timothy I. Mac Master is a Honolulu attorney.

Don’t be fooled by the label ‘tort reform’

Don’t be fooled by
the label ‘tort reform’