News in Our Current System

Kansas liability cap faces high court challenge
Kansas' stable medical liability climate could come unhinged if a long-standing cap on noneconomic damages is overturned, state physicians warned. A constitutional challenge to the $250,000 cap, which applies to all personal injury cases, stands before the state Supreme Court after justices heard oral arguments on Oct. 29. The case stems from a $759,000 jury verdict in 2006 to Amy C. Miller, who underwent an oophorectomy that allegedly went awry. The physician involved denied any wrongdoing. A trial judge later reduced the award to the state's cap.

McCain Charges Democrats Pandering to Drugmakers on Import Ban
Senate Republicans accused Democrats of pandering to the pharmaceutical industry and putting off a vote on a bipartisan plan to allow the importation of cheaper medicines from Canada and other nations. Arizona Senator John McCain, the Republicans’ 2008 presidential nominee, said Democrats were protecting a deal President Barack Obama struck with drugmakers in June to win support for an overhaul of the U.S. health-care system. The proposal would be an amendment to that legislation.

Upcoming HIPAA changes catching some unaware
Some hospitals and others that will be impacted by changes to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act don't know that rule changes are set to go into effect in 2010, a recent survey found. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conducted a survey of 150 hospital information technology executives and 26 business associate firms.

Inside the MedPAC meeting, where the tough cost calls get made
Anyone in the Washington area who wants a glimpse of what the future of American health care will increasingly look like if health-care reform legislation passes can head over to the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center Thursday or Friday for the big MedPAC meeting. Haven't heard of MedPAC? Well, you might soon. It's the 17-member commission that advises Congress on Medicare -- most notably, recommending payments rates to hospitals and other medical providers

Medical lawsuit limits favored by public
Physicians and other tort reform advocates say an Associated Press poll released Nov. 19 shows the public agrees that limiting medical liability lawsuits is key to successfully overhauling the health care system. The nationwide survey by the news organization showed that 54% of Americans favor limits on such lawsuits, while 32% opposed such measures (surveys.ap.org/data/gfk/ap-stanford-rwj%20healthcare%20topline%20final_nov18%20edits.pdf).

Healthcare lobby set for record spending this year
It's not just spending on U.S. healthcare that is breaking records. Drugmakers, insurers and industry groups are on track to spend an all-time high of more than $500 million this year to influence Congress' revamp of the healthcare system. Lobbyists for the healthcare sector will likely smash previous spending records by tens of millions of dollars this year as Democratic lawmakers try to reshape the industry by expanding coverage

Liability premiums stay stable, but insurers warn this might not last
For the fourth straight year, medical liability insurance premiums have eased nationwide. That's according to the annual Medical Liability Monitor survey, which showed 94% of premiums holding steady or dropping in 2009. Fifty-eight percent of premiums had no change, up from 50% in 2008. Another 36% of premiums fell, down from 43% last year. While those figures are encouraging, physicians and insurance executives say premiums still must shrink from sky-high levels.

Colorado joins trend to tax medical marijuana
Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. on Tuesday directed the state's medical-marijuana dispensaries to pay sales tax and obtain retail-sales licenses, bringing the once-taboo product closer to mainstream respectability. Colorado is now the second state, behind California, to tax and regulate medical-marijuana sales, a move that comes on the heels of the Obama administration's decision in October to leave enforcement of laws governing medical marijuana to the states.

Tort reform law challenged in Georgia
Emergency care in Georgia will suffer if a tort reform measure about medical liability lawsuits concerning emergency care is not upheld. That's according to a friend-of-the-court brief the Medical Assn. of Georgia and the Litigation Center of the American Medical Association and State Medical Societies filed in a case pending before the Georgia Supreme Court

Lawmakers Target Medicare and Medicaid Fraud
The federal government needs to further step up efforts to fight Medicare and Medicaid fraud to generate more savings to help pay for a health-care overhaul, lawmakers said Wednesday. "The scale of health care fraud in America today is staggering," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) said at a hearing. "Now, as health care reform moves through the Senate, I want to make sure we do all we can to tackle the fraud that could undermine efforts to reduce the skyrocketing cost of health care."

Health insurer profits not as fat as Dems claim
Quick quiz: What do these enterprises have in common? Farm and construction machinery, Tupperware, the railroads, Hershey sweets, Yum food brands and Yahoo? Answer: They're all more profitable than the health insurance industry.

Certificate-of-merit law struck down by Washington Supreme Court
The Washington Supreme Court dealt a setback to physicians by striking down a tort reform measure aimed at curbing meritless medical liability lawsuits. But doctors, in a separate ruling, won a reprieve when the high court rejected an attempt by trial lawyers to expand physician liability.

U.S. Mellows On Medical Marijuana
The Justice Department told federal prosecutors Monday they shouldn't pursue medical-marijuana users who comply with state laws, a step activists said may encourage more states to partially legalize the drug. A three-page memo from Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, affirming a policy disclosed earlier this year, said it was "unlikely to be an efficient use of limited federal resources"

Florida lawsuit takes swing at 3-strikes liability rule
In some states, people convicted of three or more criminal acts get extra punishment after their third strike. In the Sunshine State, physicians face a so-called "three strikes and you're out" rule on medical liability judgments. Florida voters borrowed the concept when they passed a constitutional amendment allowing doctors' licenses to be revoked if they had three medical liability judgments against them.

Shingles raises stroke risk by 30 percent: study
As if getting shingles isn't painful enough, researchers reported on Thursday that adults who get the rash have a 30 percent greater risk of developing a stroke than other adults. They said the risk was even higher when the rash was clustered around the eyes, Dr. Jiunn-Horng Kang of Taipei Medical University Hospital reported in the journal Stroke.

Stricter self-referral rules may end some physician contracts with hospitals
Sweeping changes to the federal anti-self-referral rules, approved more than a year ago, will take effect Oct. 1, potentially causing many physician-hospital arrangements to fall out of compliance if doctors are not prepared. Being unaware of the Stark law revisions or the structure of a particular deal will not excuse physicians from liability, legal experts say.

Challenges to medical liability caps go before Georgia, Maryland high courts
High courts in Georgia and Maryland will decide the fate of caps on noneconomic damages in medical liability cases in each state, two of the latest attempts to undo such award limits. The Georgia Supreme Court case stems from a February trial court decision rejecting the constitutionality of the state's $350,000 cap. Oral arguments began Sept. 15 in Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery v. Nestlehutt.

The Misleading Attack on the Dartmouth Research
"It’s like whack-a-mole,” a Dartmouth researcher commented in a recent e-mail. He was referring to that fact that, as Congress moves closer to the day when it will reconcile House and Senate versions of health-care reform legislation, critics seem to be popping up everywhere to question more than two decades of Dartmouth University research that exposes the waste in our health care system.

A Constitutional Debate Over a Health Care Mandate
The requirement that everyone buy health insurance moved a step closer to reality last week — and possibly a step closer to being challenged in court. Conservatives and libertarians, mostly, have been advancing the theory lately that the individual mandate, in which the government would compel everyone to buy insurance or pay a penalty, is unconstitutional.

Schumer, Rockefeller to Challenge Baucus on Health-Care Plan
Senators Charles Schumer of New York and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia will push for a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers such as Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. While four other congressional panels have adopted that “public option,” Baucus, a Montana Democrat, has endorsed more limited health cooperatives instead in a bid to draw Republican support, antagonizing members of his own party.

Getting a Health Bill Done—Special Interest Politics Versus Public Support
It is becoming more and more clear to me that the White House health care strategy this fall is based upon a belief they have been very successful in neutralizing the health care special interests and have therefore prepared the way to a legislative victory.

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