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Tom Cross, Republican House Minority Leader, has along with the House Republicans proposed the 2004 “Code Blue” Medical Liability Crisis Relief Plan. While more thoughtful than some plans, it misses crucial components that many Republican plans gloss over nationwide: no guarantee of physician insurance coverage and no guarantee of reduced “affordable” insurance rates for doctors. In exchange for this non-guarantee, Illinois patients are asked to cap non-economic damages, navigate numerous legal restrictions and submit to a multi-layered justice system that puts an increased burden in time, effort and cost on plaintiffs who, by definition, may have sustained profound medical injury. I’m all for eliminating frivolous lawsuits - this plan (in practice) denies legitimate lawsuits and punishes the victims to boot!

Worse, House Bill 6553, a part of the proposal,

“Requires the Department of Public Health to award grants to all practicing physicians…for the purpose of reimbursing the costs of obtaining malpractice insurance.”

While the language of the bill provides for payment “from funds appropriated for that purpose” - what it doesn’t spell out is that Illinois taxpayers are being asked to give money to physicians to pay insurance that needn’t be reduced at all to reflect the changed and, with damage caps and other limits, more favorable economic circumstances for insurers. In fact insurance companies are free to increase their rates to absorb the additional available money - at a profit!

Further, while the “Medical Malpractice Reform” game courtesy of Tom Cross’ webmeisters allows you to adjust “two policies: the maximum limits on non-recompensatory medical malpractice lawsuit awards, and the research support for medical safety and training improvements” - “Code Blue” legislation as I linked to above doesn’t seem to address “research support for medical safety and training improvements” at all, despite the fact that research points to more mistakes made than lawsuits filed, suggesting that we need to do something fast about the number of medically injured patients - including the vast number that don’t sue.

Among those patients that sue “Code Blue” notes,

“Physicians in Illinois are not the only parties who risk financial loss as a result of the current crisis: In some counties over 70% of those plaintiffs who file a claim never receive any money for their damages. (Illinois State Medical Society Report - February 19, 2004)”

While the context of the “Code Blue” proposal suggests that some, if not all of the “70%” of medical malpractice lawsuits in these counties are frivolous, that is not what it says. Rather, the vast majority of lawsuits, with or without merit, do not result in damages being paid, suggesting that people who have suffered legitimate harm (an unknown, but based on research cited above, larger number than those suing) never get just compensation for their injuries, perhaps due to complications with their medical injury, an inability to afford good legal representation (not usually a problem for insurers and hospitals), etc. This is a major problem “Code Blue” doesn’t address.

“Code Blue” says it aims at “a set of reasonable solutions” for medical malpractice reform. I’m all for reasonable solutions. I have said we should find ways to reduce frivolous lawsuits, they are by definition a bad thing. I agree with Tom Cross’ game - let’s put money into funding research (not games) and eliminate medical mistakes (and if Cross and/or the Republicans have already sponsored this legislation elsewhere - I agree with it, but I think it belongs in the “Code Blue” legislation as part of the package, to send the right message).

What else belongs in “Code Blue” legislation? Insurance caps. If Illinois reduces insurance risks, then its physicians should pay lower premiums, period. If Cross and the Republicans are right about the reasons for high insurance costs, then taxpayers should not be paying physician premiums to private insurers, because the problem is solved. If, as I would argue, the problem isn’t that simple, and high premiums reflect a number of issues including the return on investments that insurers get for their money in the bond market, a lack of a way to identify and properly sanction the small percentage of problem doctors that make a lot of mistakes, the exhausting work schedules that contribute to doctor error and other issues, then we need to look both critically and beyond what Cross and the Republicans propose in “Code Blue.” While the solution must move far beyond legal awards to emphasize safety and prevention, clearly arbitrarily capping damages at the relatively low level “Code Blue” suggests for injuries that could cause profound life-long suffering, is an injustice to the injured.

I hope Democrats and Republicans can join together and do the right thing for doctors, patients and Illinois taxpayers. I ask Tom Cross to join me in seeking better solutions, not out of arrogance, but because I’d like to believe that Cross is a leader who wants to do the right thing for the citizens of Illinois. Government should work beyond party on real solutions for real people.

I encourage comments and readily admit that I am still studying this issue. Read what I take to be a great discussion on the topic, which presents conservative and liberal arguments.