Rendell has head in the sand on Medical Malpractice crisis
To understand the extent to which Pennsylvania’s medical malpractice insurance crisis has threatened the trial bar and others who feed off the system, you must only look to the haste of their apologists in declaring the crisis at an end.
Governor Ed Rendell recently claimed that Pennsylvania has “turned the corner” on the liability crisis. The Philadelphia Inquirer sanctimoniously editorialized that the state’s “vital signs are stable.” I am not sure what state Governor Rendell and the Inquirer editorial board is living in, but it more resembles the state of denial than the state of Pennsylvania.
Clearly Rendell and his media apologists have not asked the people who actually deliver health care – doctors and other health care professionals – their opinion of the current impact of medical malpractice insurance costs. If they had, they would have found out that from the viewpoint of those actually in the health care industry the crisis is far from over.
The Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research, Inc. recently conducted a poll of doctors and health care professionals across Pennsylvania. Results of the poll show a health care system deeply in crisis and on the verge of imploding within the next five years unless significant, structural reform occurs.
An astounding 60% of currently practicing physicians say they are seriously considering closing their offices or ceasing to practice medicine in Pennsylvania. Seven percent of the physicians responding to the survey said they already closed their office or ceased to practice within the last year. Further, 39% said they have kept their practices open, but have discontinued providing so important, but high risk services. If medical malpractice insurance costs continue to increase at the current pace, 13% said they will close their practices within a year, and nearly half – 48% – say they will close their practices within five years.
The flow of doctors and other medical professionals from Pennsylvania is already pervasive and has had a dramatic impact on the availability and quality of care. Eighty-seven percent said they personally know a colleague who has closed his/her practice, or ceased to practice medicine in Pennsylvania during the last year due to the cost of medical malpractice insurance.
While some may tend to feel less than sorry for practitioners of a profession commonly believed to be financially lucrative, consider the impact on you the patient. Seventy-four percent of the doctors participating in the Lincoln Institute poll said that at some point during the past year they had difficulty referring a patient to a medical professional in another specialty because colleagues in that specialty have closed their practice or ceased to practice medicine in Pennsylvania due to the high cost of malpractice insurance. This means that when you need care the most, it may not be available because nobody is willing to take the risk of providing it to you.
And, if you think doctors are making all this up just to prove a political point, consider the following: 60% said they would discourage their children or grandchildren if they expressed an interest in becoming a doctor, only 28% said they would encourage such a career choice.
Governor Ed Rendell and the General Assembly have their collective heads in the sand on this issue, but it is not going to go away. This being an election year, and the governor standing for re-election, you can expect him to view such issues with rose colored glasses. That won’t solve the problem. All it will do is allow the situation to get worse, and more doctors to leave Pennsylvania, before state government gets back to business and takes action on a reform agenda that will truly deal with the problem.