LawSquawker • Thomas & Wan's Blawg

Why is Congress tearing apart the 7th Amendment and striking down State's Rights with H.B. 5? House Bill 5 is the so-called tort reform bill that barely made it out of the Judiciary Committee to limit meritorious lawsuits against health providers. Maybe it's because the sponsor of the bill has been sued multiple times himself for medical malpractice...the NY Times and Mother Jones has the full story: Case in point is one of the very congressmen sponsoring the bill, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.). In 2007, the New York Times reports, Gingrey, who is a doctor, settled a lawsuit for $500,000 in a case involving a pregnant woman whose appendicitis Gingrey and others failed to diagnose. Her appendix burst, causing a massive infection that left her unborn child dead and the woman partially disabled after she suffered a stroke as a result. That wasn't the only time Gingrey has been sued. The Times writes: In a pretrial deposition, Dr. Gingrey testified that he had been sued

Just another example that confirms all our suspicions about insurance companies... During intermission at a recent game, the USHL's Indiana Ice held a contest where a fan tries to score a length-of-the-ice goal for $50,000. One man, who said if he won would give the money to charity, succeeded, but was told him his goal didn't count because he was over some line and the insurance company who sponsored this challenge didn't pay out the prize. The Indiana Ice, however, did make a donation to charity. The full story is below...even more telling is that Allstate apparently turned around and blamed a third-party insurance company for being the bad guy. I mean, the name of the contest was Allstate Good Hands Shootout--yet Allstate claims it was someone else that should have paid--sound familiar? That happens all the time in lawsuits--it's called "subrogation" (really, passing-the-buck). Here's the full blow by blow: On Saturday night at the Pepsi

From Texas Watch : Washington lawmakers who advocate for medical malpractice reform assume they know what goes on in doctors’ offices. They say physicians order unnecessary tests because they fear being sued. So-called “defensive medicine” drives up health spending, the argument goes. They don’t acknowledge many doctors order tests because they’re trying to do a thorough job with patients. They rarely mention too much testing is a result of this country’s “fee for service” system of paying doctors. The more care they provide, the more they bill. Yet proponents of tort reform continue to call for changes in the law – usually caps on the amount of money in non-economic damages patients can collect in a malpractice lawsuits. Even if that did drive down the price of insurance for doctors, that doesn’t mean the savings would be passed on to consumers. It wouldn’t automatically lead to reduced health costs. Read More: Des Moines Register