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All medical needs are not equal
Amanda Whitman
Expecting taxpayers to pay for the consequences of medical negligence is not only outrageous, but it is wrong. And yet, that’s exactly what New Mexico does.
America’s health-care industry has been experiencing growing pains for several decades now. With the ever-evolving technology of today’s world, there are new methods to diagnose a wide variety of health issues. The progress in preventative and diagnostic care could mean that we are healthier now than ever before.
Yet we face many of the same medical dilemmas that we did 25 years ago. Regardless of the most impressive medical equipment, we still have a cold truth that doctors and researchers are human. Part of being human is making mistakes.
Medical mistakes can range in consequence, some results being truly minor while others are more severe. It’s a topic where each separate occurrence happens to be ever so slightly different.
When people file a claim of medical malpractice, they are filing a claim of damage that has occurred for them in an unfair, unforeseen manner. The victim could not have possibly saved for the unexpected medical bills, and that is why some are forced to file a medical malpractice lawsuit.
The 2006 New Mexico Statutes, Section 41-5-6, states “the aggregate dollar amount recoverable by all persons for or arising from any injury or death to a patient as a result of malpractice shall not exceed six hundred thousand dollars ($600,000) per occurrence.” It also states that this dollar amount does not include the accrued medical costs involving the injury or death, but future medical expenses will not be monetarily compensated either.
What about a mistake during childbirth?
So what happens if the doctor makes a mistake during childbirth? The resulting health problems can plague the newborn child for life. Klumpke’s Palsy, for example, is typically caused by a problem during delivery where the infant’s shoulder catches on the mother’s hip bone. This is called shoulder dystocia, and it may result in a brachial plexus injury involving nerve damage that can lead to Klumpke’s Palsy. While having diabetes or being overweight has been linked to an increase in risk of this injury, the parents have virtually no control to prevent the complication from happening.
The doctor, however, can act quickly and at least prevent the mother and baby from being severely injured, thus minimizing the risk of Klumpke’s Palsy for the child.
If the doctor makes a mistake or somehow fails to identify the problem of shoulder dystocia, and the baby is injured during delivery, the child will have a lifetime of additional medical needs. Under the New Mexico Statutes, Section 41-5-6, this family will not be able to collect monetary compensation to help the child with future surgical or physical therapy costs.
The parents are left to worry whether their child will be able to take care of him or herself after they are gone, and the child is typically placed on Medicaid when the family has runs of money for the excess medical expenses. The child’s medical bills now fall upon taxpayers, even when a specific doctor or group has been held accountable in the court of law for their own errors.
Treating each case the same is ludicrous
The system seems flawed to me. Expecting taxpayers to pay for the consequences of medical negligence is not only outrageous, but it is wrong.
Today’s tough economy already places an immense burden on the average American citizen. By placing a cap on medical malpractice claims, the court system is making two very large mistakes. First and foremost, it is equating all medical malpractice cases to the same playing field. Each case is drastically different, but they are treated the same and the cap of $600,000 remains the same, regardless of the victim’s actual needs.
Second, by having the $600,000 cap in place, the courts are allowing responsibility to essentially “roll-over” into taxpayers’ pockets once the full amount of the cap has been used. It is as if the system is saying that a doctor or hospital can only be $600,000 wrong, and anything beyond that is somehow the American public’s fault.
The concept of treating each (wildly different) case the same, of already having a number in place of how much financial assistance the family will need, is ludicrous.
Amanda Whitman is an avid writer and a recent college graduate. She hopes to impact the world in a positive manner by encouraging a love for learning through her writing.
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@Mick: Why wouldn’t the Market Place react by: Insurance companies raising the rates on doctors who have above average occurrences of medical mistakes?
Isn’t that what they already do? They cannot, however, recover their losses by raising one premium, so everyone’s premiums go up. Same with car insurance and bad drivers. Sure, bad drivers pay higher premiums than the rest of us, but the company still spreads the bulk of its losses over the whole pool.
I’m not at all defending caps on malpractice awards. I agree with the author that every case is different. I was simply pointing out that the author’s point of view—that the cap punishes taxpayers—might not be the best way to look at such a situation. Many people beyond the one doctor are going to be paying for his mistake—if not taxpayers than it will be other patients. I also agree with Justician that universal health care (preferably, I might add, under a single-payer system) would help “manage medical costs such as this.” Again, it’s a matter of how many people share the risks—and, conversely, the benefits.
Universal health care would help enormously with managing medical costs in cases such as this. American juries are actually very skeptical of huge verdicts and reluctant to reward what they see as gold digging. Huge settlement amounts stem from cases such as the one in this article, where the victim faces enormous medical costs that cannot be covered even with standard insurance. Any dollar cap is going to leave the plaintiffs vulnerable to inflation. Caps that seemed generous a decade ago are entirely inappropriate today. There should be no cap on out of pocket medical costs once the cause of injury is found to be gross negligence.
That said, the standard has to be high. Everyone has at least brief lapses, including doctors.
@ concernednewmexican:If we did not have a limit on malpractice awards and the doctor (via his malpractice insurance) was made responsible for a lifetime of medical expenses, the cost would simply be transferred to other patients…
Why wouldn’t the Market Place react by:
1. Insurance Companies raising the rates on doctors who have above average occurrences of medical mistakes?
2. The medical community and the insurance companies pooling their experience and peer pressure to take corrective measures against doctors who practice reckless medicine.
3. An informed public staying away from doctors who practice reckless medicine.
There are two general types of insurance; (1) one the maritime model and (2) the bookmaker’s model. In the maritime model kindred spirits like ship owners and shippers pool their resources to protect against the loss of a single ship, which would otherwise bankrupt that ship owner. In this model, the people with skin in the game make sure that competent captains and able seamen operate sea worthy vessels. In the bookmakers’ model, the bookmaker only cares that there are betters. The bookmaker is unconcerned with the outcome and has no interest in reducing the total liability pool, since he takes his vigorish off the top. Of course, an individual bookmaker, or several bookmakers, could get clobbered in the event of a catastrophic calamity. The same could happen to the maritime community. Which type of insurance do you think malpractice insurance is?
As ever, Michael J. Flynn
There are a couple of ways you can look at this. Ms. Whitman’s way is one of blame and punishment: The doctor is to blame, but the taxpayers are the ones punished. If we did not have a limit on malpractice awards and the doctor (via his malpractice insurance) was made responsible for a lifetime of medical expenses, the cost would simply be transferred to other patients—mostly those who have health insurance. Now it’s insured people who are being “punished” for the doctor’s mistakes. Instead, we can look at this in a more constructive, holistic way than the blame/punishment paradigm. We can look at it as though we are a community coming together to help a vulnerable family and their child cope with the inequities of life. Our “community” can either consist of a large group of taxpayers—for whom the cost-shifting will be miniscule on a per-person basis—or a smaller group of insured patients—for whom the cost-shifting will be much higher on a per-person basis. I suspect that is the paradigm lawmakers were looking at when they passed this law. It wasn’t to push a “punishment” onto taxpayers; it was to find the best way of helping this family and others like them in a way that has the least impact on society as a whole.