DOCTORS SAY POSSIBLE WALKOUT IS NOT ABOUT GREED, BUT OUT-OF-CONTROL INSURANCE COSTS

AP Breaking News ^ | 01 January 2003 | Vicki Smith

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

WEIRTON, W.Va. (AP) - As he stood in a hallway at Weirton Medical Center, Dr. Jayapal Reddy was undecided about whether he would join a mass walkout to protest skyrocketing medical malpractice insurance premiums. But if he does join dozens of fellow surgeons in a strike starting Wednesday, he said it won't be because he is greedy. Reddy, who drives a Subaru with 110,000 miles, said with the rising insurance costs, he must earn $250,000 before seeing $1 in profit.

Reddy is one of dozens of surgeons at four northern West Virginia hospitals who may stop reporting for duty, forcing most elective and trauma surgeries to be diverted to hospitals in Ohio, Pennsylvania or Morgantown. Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, surgeons around the state backed off their threat to close their practices Wednesday just hours before they were scheduled to walk off the job. Strike plans were canceled after Gov.-elect Ed Rendell promised to fight for $220 million in aid for doctors this year. The aid offer is tentative one.

Rendell, a Democrat, doesn't take office for another three weeks and even though he still must persuade a Republican-controlled Legislature to accept his plan, there were signs that the offer had averted a large-scale work stoppage. "We are going to go back to work," said Margo Opsasnick, chief executive at Delta Medix, one of several Scranton surgical groups that had planned to close Jan. 1 because of high insurance costs.

"We are going to take Mr. Rendell's offer as one of good faith, and keep seeing patients," she said Tuesday. Other physician groups around the state followed suit. Scranton's biggest hospital, Community Medical Center, notified state officials Tuesday that its neurosurgeons had also agreed to keep working, avoiding a planned closure of northeast Pennsylvania's only trauma center. "It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off our shoulders," said hospital spokeswoman Jane Gaul.

No such relief came to surgeons in West Virginia. They said they wanted lawmakers to get their message that the state has created a hostile working environment, and doctors are ready to leave. "I'm under contractual obligation to this hospital until September," Reddy said. "I'm already looking around." Dr. Jeffrey Wilps and other surgeons met for more than an hour Tuesday with state insurance officials and concluded, "there's no quick fix to this." "They're just trying to pacify the physicians now. They don't realize it's come to an acute crisis situation," Wilps said. "West Virginia is chasing the doctors - and the businesses in general - out of the state."

Insurance and Retirement Services Director Tom Susman said he tried to head off the strike but found surgeons reluctant to wait for legislative solutions. He returned to Charleston to help the administration finalize contingency plans, which could include rotating doctors from other parts of the state. Lawmakers convene Jan. 8 in Charleston, but surgeons in Weirton said Susman asked them to postpone their walkout until Feb. 1, a delay several found unacceptable. "If we stay silent until Feb. 1, and nothing happens, then they pass us by for another year," said Dr. Samuel Licata, who plans to join the walkout by taking a leave of absence beginning Jan. 6.

Licata, a board-certified general surgeon for seven years, has seen his annual premiums soar from $18,000 to $58,000 without a single lawsuit filed against him. He said surgeons have three critical needs: affordable malpractice insurance; laws that make it harder to sue and cap damage awards; and a reduction in the provider tax, which charges doctors 2 percent of their gross income. "People don't understand. Yes, doctors do make a lot of money. But this isn't about us trying to make more money," Licata said. "It's about trying to keep our heads above water."

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Tort reform, make EVERYONE pay something...even illegal aliens, and remember that doctors have to pay a fortune in TIME and money to go to school to try and save lives. If they make them go back to work without tort reform and without stopping the freeloading, we're into full-blown socialism.

[RLK]

Reddy, who drives a Subaru with 110,000 miles, said with the rising insurance costs, he must earn $250,000 before seeing $1 in profit.

The situation is driving physicians out of busines and driving medical costs through the roof for patients who must eventually pay the bill.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Plaintiff's Bar has become a part of American medicine just like the mob has infiltrated the Teamsters.

[mc10]

difficult to have a lot of sympathy for the few doctors that i know and have known...all are doing quite well *after* paying required insurance costs and most earn more than me but if this trend continues governments will eventually be able to take over insuring these people... in effect forcing them to function as quasi government employees...added to the already burdensome control by insurance companies and medicare the incentive to go into medicine will be largely removed and the quality of care may suffer greatly

[Oberon]

Hear that?

It's the sound of Atlas shrugging.

[Fishing-guy]

Let's also not forget the large and small business owners. Our entire tort legal system is out of wack. It will eventually drive these businesses who can to move out of these business unfriendly states or country.

[Fishing-guy]

"It's the sound of Atlas shrugging."

Just what does that mean?

[alloysteel]

Tort law, as practiced in the US, is the Great American Lottery, with the primary recipients of the awards being the "hard-working" trial lawyers, whose blind ambition have made them the "new rich" which have been so deeply despised in other eras. They are the most loathsome of parasites, contributing nothing to a lasting legacy, but sporting the most recent and most fashionable opinions and emblems of a transient prestige. They are the abusers of our age, as unprincipled as the "robber barons" of the 19th Century, and with even fewer fetters on their actions.

[gitmo]

It's only the first shrug, though.

[FreePaul]

If we really want to put the lawyers out of business we should encourage the government to take over the payment for legal services. They have been successful in putting doctors out of business why not lawyers.

I get aggravated when I see doctor's bills paid by government agencies at about twenty percent of the billed amount when at the same time the Hospital bill is paid in full including all of the bogus, inflated and fraudulent charges. If you question these charges you get shuffled around the bureaucracy until you get tired and give up. Then the insurance rates go up to cover "increased medical care".

[clintonh8r]

Tort reform should include the British "loser pays" system. Trial lawyers will be running for the courthouse exits if that ever happens.

[tsomer]

Funny how Hillary and co. jumped on healthcare reform, but nobody was interested in lawyer reform.

Since we seem bound to nationalize something, let's nationalize the legal system: pay all the lawyers a flat fee administered by the government. Then everybody could afford the same level of legal competence: a level playing field.

While we're at it, let's pay jurors 50 bucks a day; that way we get some with brains.

Justice for all, that's my line ;-)

[Oberon]

It's a reference to Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. I'm not a Randian, but there are some elements of truth in her philosophy; Atlas Shrugged is about how the world depends on the hard work and goodwill of a relatively small fraction of the population. Sooner or later the rest of the population begins to take this hard work and goodwill for granted, and shortly thereafter demands it as their due. Not long after that, the relatively small fraction of the population on whom the rest depend walk away.

The title is a reference to the titan Atlas, who in Greek mythology bore the earth on his shoulders.

[Redleg Duke]

I hear that the law schools are having trouble attracting white males. Nothing but females and minorities.

Tort reform will take care of that problem. When they find out they will have to work, they will avoid it like the plague!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Venezuela is a good example.

[Vinnie]

... with the primary recipients of the awards being the "hard-working" trial lawyers, whose blind ambition have made them the "new rich" which have been so deeply despised in other eras. They are the most loathsome of parasites, contributing nothing to a lasting legacy, but sporting the most recent and most fashionable opinions and emblems of a transient prestige.....

Surely you can't be referring to John Edwards, possible presidential candidate? <.G.>

[Founding Father]

The government is driving drs out of business (and by the way, just because a doc says it, doesn't make it true). Take gov't $ out of the health care system and prices and costs will drop like a rock in water (same is true concerning college tuition too).

Basic economics, gov't $ skews supply/demand driving prices up.

I'd be curious as to how many freepers would run to a lawyer if they felt a doc had malpracticed on their child, spouse,etc. I bet the % would be embarassingly high for the so-called tort reform group.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

...difficult to have a lot of sympathy for the few doctors that i know and have known...all are doing quite well *after* paying required insurance costs and most earn more than me...

Difficult to have a lot of sympathy for jealous socialists who think no one should be allowed to *EARN* more than they.

[alloysteel]

You are uncommonly perceptive. John Edwards, like his intellectual antecedent, the "Former Occupant of the Oval Office, 1993-2001", is just the next assault by the Trial Lawyers on control and subversion of the American dialogue.

First, make America weak and indecisive, and cripple the competitive advantages by cumbersome rules and endless court challenges. Then, begin surrender on the installment plan, and finally, show it was all the Republicans' fault anyway.

[JennysCool]

Being a cynic, I'm not usually the one to say "Got Lemons? Make Lemonade!" but it seems to me this is an excellent opportunity for a good, solid, capitalist solution. America's doctors should band together and form their own insurance company -- created and sustained with investments from the members -- which has a solid team of investigators on call to ferret out fraud. Such a monolithic company, it seems to me, would go a long way toward reducing individual premiums, and its lobbying power could promote real legislative action on tort reform. Just thinkin', and Happy New Year all!