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CNN Live Today

Interview With Presidents of Trial Lawyer, Medical Associations

Aired March 04, 2003 - 11:20   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Today, a House committee is hearing from experts, and victims as well, about the consequences of this bill.
Now, this bill would cap noneconomic damages at a quarter of a million dollars. The American Medical Association supports President Bush's plan, and says that large jury awards are driving doctors out of business, and have led to a liability crisis in no fewer than 18 states.

Trial lawyers? Well they argue that it's unfair to cap damages to people without income, such as house wives and the unemployed. So let's talk to both sides and find out where they stand this morning.

Mary Alexander is president of the American Association of Trial Lawyers, and Dr. Yank Coble is president of the American Medical Association. And they both join us from Washington, where, as we just saw moments ago, President Bush addressed the AMA last hour. Good morning to both of you. Thank you very much for coming in and talking with us today.

MARY ALEXANDER, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF TRIAL LAWYERS: Great to be here.

HARRIS: Since I don't know where to start with this whole discussion, I'm going to do what my mom always said, start with ladies first.

All right, Ms. Alexander, is it your position and your group's position that these jury awards, which many have come to agree are getting totally out of hand, is actually a good thing? Don't you agree there's got to be some sort of reigning in there?

ALEXANDER: You know, the facts are that the verdicts have remained about the same, and there's a lot of things that we can talk about that need reform in the health care system, but one of the mistakes that President Bush makes, it is a wrong prescription to what the problem is, which is that the insurance companies have too much control over our health care system, and his prescription is the wrong way to solve this problem.

What we need is a focus on the insurance industry and insurance reform. His proposal will hurt those that are already severely injured by medical malpractice, like Jesica Santillan, whose heart/liver transplant was botched by a simple mistake of failing to check her blood type. And like Linda McDougal, who had a double mastectomy because -- when she didn't have cancer because her chart was mixed up with another one.

And also Sherry Keller, who is now in a wheelchair for life after a mistake during a simple hysterectomy. These are the people that are severely injured, and would be more injured by his plan.

HARRIS: All right. Dr. Coble, we'll let you hop in here and offer any suggestions -- or any examples that you have got this morning.

DR. YANK COBLE, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION: Well, thank you. And, of course, we agree with President Bush, and we agree with the American public, and we agree with the facts that we have a broken medical liability system that is depriving patients access to quality medical care. It is depriving people of their obstetricians, it is depriving them of trauma care, it is depriving them of neurosurgery in wide areas of this country, and I think the crisis has been very well described by our media.

President Bush says there should be a solution applied this year, now. He said that there should be a cap of $250,000 only on noneconomic damages. That means that full recovery can occur for medical costs, home care, rehabilitation, nursing care, child care, lost earnings, huge awards.

The only thing that would be capped are noneconomic damages. He pointed out, also, that we should apply a solution that's worked. The solution has worked in California for over a quarter of a century. They don't have physicians leaving that state or retiring early. In California, people have access to the courts as much as they do in Florida, where there's a crisis. And in California it's the patient...

(CROSSTALK)

COBLE: ... patient who gets the award, not the attorney who receives 40 to 60 percent of it.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: Sorry, folks, we are going to have to sneak in a break right now. Stay tuned. We're going to continue this discussion right after the break. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: And we now continue our discussion this morning about President Bush's plan on addressing malpractice reform with Mary Alexander, President of the Association of Trial Lawyers, and Dr. Yank Coble, who is president of the American Medical Association, both in Washington. I want to hit on a couple of things that Dr. Coble mentioned before the break.

One, the example of the state of California. President Bush proposing this cap, now, on awards for pain and suffering. As I understand it, California does have such a system, but I have read mixed reviews, rather, of the success of that. Dr. Coble, you believe that has been a success in California. Ms. Alexander, what's your view of that?

ALEXANDER: Well, I practiced -- and I practiced there for 20 years, and it has not been the reform -- medical malpractice reform that was passed in 1975 that had any effect. In fact, rates went up 400 percent after it went into play.

HARRIS: That is pretty much what I have read as well.

ALEXANDER: And not until 1988 when insurance reform was passed, which called for them to be subject to anti-trust laws so couldn't get together, collude, and set prices, and had to come in and ask for rate increases, that's when rates were finally stabilized.

And so, if California should be held up as an example, it's because insurance reform. And that's what needs to be done. If we want to help the doctors with their premiums, we need insurance reform, not to take away the rights of people. Wherever they have done that, in California the rates have not gone down. In fact, our rates are, right now, about 8 percent higher than states with caps -- without caps around the country, and so we need to make sure we have insurance reform.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: All right. Dr. Coble -- let's let Dr. Coble address that.

COBLE: Well, the facts are, since 1974, when they passed the reforms that have been so effective in California, by everyone's criteria, except the trial lawyers, Florida's rates have gone up 505 percent while California's have gone up 167 percent. In fact, Florida's have gone up even a great deal more than that if you count through 2002, well over 2,000 percent. So the numbers are there.

No. 2, that is a smoke screen about 1988. Ask Senator Feinstein, who has stated publicly that she thinks MICRA has been a great success, and it should be applied nationally.

The American public has said, in polls, Gallup polls and others, 75 percent or more that there should be a cap on these noneconomic damages. They point out the great cost. The public knows the great cost this system is creating in terms of cost of care and access to care.

HARRIS: All right...

COBLE: And, of course, this California plan is one that's been implemented in other states where they have been successful, and they don't have emergency rooms closing. They don't have physicians dropping obstetrical care or neurosurgery. So we should apply a solution that works.

We would be remiss if we don't do something that helps the American public to get care -- better quality care, and more cost effective care, and the present system is so broken that it causes the kind of accidents that occur. Patient safety is a critical issue, and no country has done more with their patients' safety than ours. But this system of shame and blame, legal liability lottery with only the lawyers having the winning lottery ticket is suppressing good efforts...

(CROSSTALK)

ALEXANDER: ... and to fix this problem, which is to go after the insurance companies. It's amazing how the AMA is doing this for the insurance companies that are putting them in this situation. Wherever they have put in this kind of reform, both in California, in Mississippi, last year they put it in the caps, and guess what? Rates went up. In Nevada, they put in reforms. And guess what? Some of the doctors, their rates are going up twice as much in a year (ph). It never works.

HARRIS: Well, let me jump in -- let me jump in right now, because there is one other consideration that I'd like to bring up, and this is one that I have actually heard suggested by doctors themselves. They have said that, perhaps, maybe the key here is just coming down harder on the bad doctors that are causing some of these high jury awards, and I have heard that some of the licensing restrictions are basically not really being enforced from state to state strongly enough to keep the bad doctors from actually causing the harm to the system.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: I'd like to know what each of you think about that.

ALEXANDER: Well, that's right. Let's stop -- that is right. Let's stop medical malpractice. Did you know that there are 98,000 deaths per year in hospitals, preventable deaths? And we need to focus in on that.

And as we do that, we need to also make sure we have the insurance reform, and that we don't hurt the people that are most severely injured by those mistakes, and that we make sure that they're taken care of and that we don't put an arbitrary one-size-fits-all on what they're able to recover.

HARRIS: Dr. Coble.

COBLE: Well, the author of the study, which is cited by the Institute of Medicine (UNINTELLIGIBLE) from Harvard, points out that there's no correlation between medical negligence and a huge award, that the outcome is related more to disability.

And if you look in South Florida, you'll find that the neurosurgeons average three to five suits, all of them. How do you pick out the bad doctors based on suits? You can't. Our broken system doesn't identify bad doctors. In fact, if anything, it suppresses the improvement in quality of allowing us to create a correction of the systems. It's a tragedy when some of the best places in the world, and of course the tragedy recently was in one of the best places in the world, occurs and they immediately say there's a mistake, we are sorry. We should give compensation and will. And we should be able to look at the system without having to have the legal system determine quality of medical care, and medical necessity instead of the patients having choice and decision making. This broken system impairs our quality in care, and even medical research in so many ways.

HARRIS: I don't think there's much argument there. Dr. Yank Coble and Mary Alexander, thank you very much for joining us this morning and sharing your insights and perspectives on this, and you have given us a good idea of exactly how tough this problem is, how intractable it is, and just how much work there is to be done in Washington to settle this issue. Appreciate that. Take care. Good luck to both of you.

ALEXANDER: Thank you. Great to be here.

COBLE: Thank you.

ALEXANDER: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Associations>


Aired March 4, 2003 - 11:20   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Today, a House committee is hearing from experts, and victims as well, about the consequences of this bill.
Now, this bill would cap noneconomic damages at a quarter of a million dollars. The American Medical Association supports President Bush's plan, and says that large jury awards are driving doctors out of business, and have led to a liability crisis in no fewer than 18 states.

Trial lawyers? Well they argue that it's unfair to cap damages to people without income, such as house wives and the unemployed. So let's talk to both sides and find out where they stand this morning.

Mary Alexander is president of the American Association of Trial Lawyers, and Dr. Yank Coble is president of the American Medical Association. And they both join us from Washington, where, as we just saw moments ago, President Bush addressed the AMA last hour. Good morning to both of you. Thank you very much for coming in and talking with us today.

MARY ALEXANDER, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF TRIAL LAWYERS: Great to be here.

HARRIS: Since I don't know where to start with this whole discussion, I'm going to do what my mom always said, start with ladies first.

All right, Ms. Alexander, is it your position and your group's position that these jury awards, which many have come to agree are getting totally out of hand, is actually a good thing? Don't you agree there's got to be some sort of reigning in there?

ALEXANDER: You know, the facts are that the verdicts have remained about the same, and there's a lot of things that we can talk about that need reform in the health care system, but one of the mistakes that President Bush makes, it is a wrong prescription to what the problem is, which is that the insurance companies have too much control over our health care system, and his prescription is the wrong way to solve this problem.

What we need is a focus on the insurance industry and insurance reform. His proposal will hurt those that are already severely injured by medical malpractice, like Jesica Santillan, whose heart/liver transplant was botched by a simple mistake of failing to check her blood type. And like Linda McDougal, who had a double mastectomy because -- when she didn't have cancer because her chart was mixed up with another one.

And also Sherry Keller, who is now in a wheelchair for life after a mistake during a simple hysterectomy. These are the people that are severely injured, and would be more injured by his plan.

HARRIS: All right. Dr. Coble, we'll let you hop in here and offer any suggestions -- or any examples that you have got this morning.

DR. YANK COBLE, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION: Well, thank you. And, of course, we agree with President Bush, and we agree with the American public, and we agree with the facts that we have a broken medical liability system that is depriving patients access to quality medical care. It is depriving people of their obstetricians, it is depriving them of trauma care, it is depriving them of neurosurgery in wide areas of this country, and I think the crisis has been very well described by our media.

President Bush says there should be a solution applied this year, now. He said that there should be a cap of $250,000 only on noneconomic damages. That means that full recovery can occur for medical costs, home care, rehabilitation, nursing care, child care, lost earnings, huge awards.

The only thing that would be capped are noneconomic damages. He pointed out, also, that we should apply a solution that's worked. The solution has worked in California for over a quarter of a century. They don't have physicians leaving that state or retiring early. In California, people have access to the courts as much as they do in Florida, where there's a crisis. And in California it's the patient...

(CROSSTALK)

COBLE: ... patient who gets the award, not the attorney who receives 40 to 60 percent of it.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: Sorry, folks, we are going to have to sneak in a break right now. Stay tuned. We're going to continue this discussion right after the break. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: And we now continue our discussion this morning about President Bush's plan on addressing malpractice reform with Mary Alexander, President of the Association of Trial Lawyers, and Dr. Yank Coble, who is president of the American Medical Association, both in Washington. I want to hit on a couple of things that Dr. Coble mentioned before the break.

One, the example of the state of California. President Bush proposing this cap, now, on awards for pain and suffering. As I understand it, California does have such a system, but I have read mixed reviews, rather, of the success of that. Dr. Coble, you believe that has been a success in California. Ms. Alexander, what's your view of that?

ALEXANDER: Well, I practiced -- and I practiced there for 20 years, and it has not been the reform -- medical malpractice reform that was passed in 1975 that had any effect. In fact, rates went up 400 percent after it went into play.

HARRIS: That is pretty much what I have read as well.

ALEXANDER: And not until 1988 when insurance reform was passed, which called for them to be subject to anti-trust laws so couldn't get together, collude, and set prices, and had to come in and ask for rate increases, that's when rates were finally stabilized.

And so, if California should be held up as an example, it's because insurance reform. And that's what needs to be done. If we want to help the doctors with their premiums, we need insurance reform, not to take away the rights of people. Wherever they have done that, in California the rates have not gone down. In fact, our rates are, right now, about 8 percent higher than states with caps -- without caps around the country, and so we need to make sure we have insurance reform.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: All right. Dr. Coble -- let's let Dr. Coble address that.

COBLE: Well, the facts are, since 1974, when they passed the reforms that have been so effective in California, by everyone's criteria, except the trial lawyers, Florida's rates have gone up 505 percent while California's have gone up 167 percent. In fact, Florida's have gone up even a great deal more than that if you count through 2002, well over 2,000 percent. So the numbers are there.

No. 2, that is a smoke screen about 1988. Ask Senator Feinstein, who has stated publicly that she thinks MICRA has been a great success, and it should be applied nationally.

The American public has said, in polls, Gallup polls and others, 75 percent or more that there should be a cap on these noneconomic damages. They point out the great cost. The public knows the great cost this system is creating in terms of cost of care and access to care.

HARRIS: All right...

COBLE: And, of course, this California plan is one that's been implemented in other states where they have been successful, and they don't have emergency rooms closing. They don't have physicians dropping obstetrical care or neurosurgery. So we should apply a solution that works.

We would be remiss if we don't do something that helps the American public to get care -- better quality care, and more cost effective care, and the present system is so broken that it causes the kind of accidents that occur. Patient safety is a critical issue, and no country has done more with their patients' safety than ours. But this system of shame and blame, legal liability lottery with only the lawyers having the winning lottery ticket is suppressing good efforts...

(CROSSTALK)

ALEXANDER: ... and to fix this problem, which is to go after the insurance companies. It's amazing how the AMA is doing this for the insurance companies that are putting them in this situation. Wherever they have put in this kind of reform, both in California, in Mississippi, last year they put it in the caps, and guess what? Rates went up. In Nevada, they put in reforms. And guess what? Some of the doctors, their rates are going up twice as much in a year (ph). It never works.

HARRIS: Well, let me jump in -- let me jump in right now, because there is one other consideration that I'd like to bring up, and this is one that I have actually heard suggested by doctors themselves. They have said that, perhaps, maybe the key here is just coming down harder on the bad doctors that are causing some of these high jury awards, and I have heard that some of the licensing restrictions are basically not really being enforced from state to state strongly enough to keep the bad doctors from actually causing the harm to the system.

(CROSSTALK)

HARRIS: I'd like to know what each of you think about that.

ALEXANDER: Well, that's right. Let's stop -- that is right. Let's stop medical malpractice. Did you know that there are 98,000 deaths per year in hospitals, preventable deaths? And we need to focus in on that.

And as we do that, we need to also make sure we have the insurance reform, and that we don't hurt the people that are most severely injured by those mistakes, and that we make sure that they're taken care of and that we don't put an arbitrary one-size-fits-all on what they're able to recover.

HARRIS: Dr. Coble.

COBLE: Well, the author of the study, which is cited by the Institute of Medicine (UNINTELLIGIBLE) from Harvard, points out that there's no correlation between medical negligence and a huge award, that the outcome is related more to disability.

And if you look in South Florida, you'll find that the neurosurgeons average three to five suits, all of them. How do you pick out the bad doctors based on suits? You can't. Our broken system doesn't identify bad doctors. In fact, if anything, it suppresses the improvement in quality of allowing us to create a correction of the systems. It's a tragedy when some of the best places in the world, and of course the tragedy recently was in one of the best places in the world, occurs and they immediately say there's a mistake, we are sorry. We should give compensation and will. And we should be able to look at the system without having to have the legal system determine quality of medical care, and medical necessity instead of the patients having choice and decision making. This broken system impairs our quality in care, and even medical research in so many ways.

HARRIS: I don't think there's much argument there. Dr. Yank Coble and Mary Alexander, thank you very much for joining us this morning and sharing your insights and perspectives on this, and you have given us a good idea of exactly how tough this problem is, how intractable it is, and just how much work there is to be done in Washington to settle this issue. Appreciate that. Take care. Good luck to both of you.

ALEXANDER: Thank you. Great to be here.

COBLE: Thank you.

ALEXANDER: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com





Associations>