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February 01, 2005
I have a calculator
The Medical Association of Georgia estimates that Tort reform, as passed by the Georgia Senate, will shave $20 million annually from MAG's malpractice premiums. Sounds like a lot of money, until you learn that in 2002 Georgia had 16,000 doctors, of which MAG insured about 70%. When you divide $20,000,000 by 11,000 doctors you learn that each doctor MAG covers will see their premiums drop by an amazing amount of a little under $1,800.
Somehow, when doctors (who have been majorly hoodwinked by this tort reform con) complained about the outrageous cost of practicing medicine, I don't think they meant $1,800 / year.
Thinking of tort reform's amazing potential (sarcastic!), remember that the money doctors will save on premiums could go towards insuring an additional 16,000 Georgia families, and that's a big maybe. Most family insurance probably costs more than $1,800 / year so lets say that 10,000 new Georgia families will get insured. Sounds great, until you realize that there are probably over 300,000 uninsured Georgia families (probably more).
So to sum up, all of Georgia traded their rights to seek remedies for MALPRACTICE -- we're not talking about frivolous cases. Nobody's pulling the frivolous lawsuit one-armed bandit and making any money. We are talking about serious MALPRACTICE, as in the doctor who operated on you was drunk or has a history of screwing up surgeries. So, we have all, thanks to the Georgia Senate and probably soon the House, traded our ability to seek remedy when a drunk doctor screws up an operation on us for doctors, on average to save about $1,800 a year on their insurance premiums.
To put it another way, everybody in Georgia signed away their rights so that, potentially, 3% of Georgia's uninsured families can maybe (but probably not) get insurance.
Posted by Chris at February 1, 2005 06:26 PM
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