May 10, 2005

Via Facsmile (INSERT FAX NUMBER)

SENATOR NAME

ADDRESS

Dear Senator __________________:

I am writing to voice my strong opposition to Amendment 4 to Senate Bill 276, and any future legislation including arbitrary caps on damages for those injured or killed by negligent doctors or hospitals.

The claim is that the frequency and severity of medical malpractice lawsuits in recent years has increased, thereby causing high malpractice insurance premiums, which in turn has reduced access to healthcare. The claim is that we will solve these problems if we take away the most important constitutional right of those harmed by medical malpractice, the right to full compensation, by setting an arbitrary cap on what a jury can award an injured patient. The facts do not support these claims.

Until someone is hurt or killed by malpractice, there can be no malpractice lawsuit. Medical malpractice is one of the leading causes of death and injury in this state.

On May 1, the Chicago Tribune, citing the National Practitioners Databank, reported that 5 percent of the doctors who have made malpractice payments over the last 15 years are responsible for almost one-third of the costs.

The same insurance companies and interest groups who want to take away patients’ rights have no suggestions about how to prevent medical malpractice. What is going to be done about the malpractice that understandably leads to lawsuits?

In the last five years in Illinois, the number of medical malpractice lawsuits filed each year has been about the same.

From 1999 through 2003, the number of claims paid by ISMIE in Cook, St. Clair, and Madison Counties has steadily decreased.

Since 1997, the annual total amount paid in claims by ISMIE has remained about the same. In 2004, ISMIE paid 10 percent less in total claims than it did in 2003. The average amount ISMIE paid on a claim in 2004 was 20 percent less than in 2003 and less than the average of $558,000 in 2002.

ISMIE insures about 14,000 doctors. At $150,000,000 per year in total claims, it is paying approximately $10,000 per ISMIE insured. But high risk specialists are paying as much as $250,000 for a year’s insurance. Does that make sense?

In recent years, while claims have been decreasing, the total amount of premiums collected by ISMIE has been increasing rapidly. In 2004, the difference between the amount of premium dollars taken in and the amount paid out in claims was about $270 million.

And in most cases, where does the "economic damage" award go? Not to the injured patient. The "economic" damages are not really the patient’s money. It goes back into the healthcare system and to insurance companies for past and future medical bills for surgeries, wheelchairs, medications, therapy, and prosthetic devices to repair as best as possible the damage caused by the malpractice of the doctors and hospitals.

The "non-economic" award is the patient’s money. "Non-economic" damages include not only compensation for pain and suffering but also for disability, disfigurement, and loss of society for the death of a family member. The doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies use "non-economic" as a euphemism for "not important." Amputees, persons who are blind or brain damaged, and widows and their young children would disagree.

The insurers claim that caps will lower malpractice premiums. But this is not true, as demonstrated throughout the country. Even if caps did lower premiums, ISMIE has said that a cap on damages would at best lower premiums 20 percent several years from now. But reducing the premiums 20 percent would not even reduce them to the level they were in 2002 before the huge rate increase in 2003 that supposedly caused the "crisis."

Access to healthcare has been raised as an issue in Illinois, with shortages of doctors, particularly specialists, being the subject of hysteria. But in 2001, the California Medical Association conducted a survey of 19,000 physicians who had had the protection of caps for 26 years. The Association found that many physicians were leaving the practice. Lower reimbursement, managed care hassles, and government regulation were the greatest sources of dissatisfaction. 43 percent of surveyed physicians planned to leave medical practice in the next three years. 58 percent of physicians had experienced difficulty attracting other physicians to join a practice. More than 25 percent of physicians had difficulty in recruiting doctors in various counties in California. Primary care, neurology, orthopedic surgery, and neurosurgery led in specialty shortages. More than one-fourth of physicians would no longer choose medicine as a career if starting over today, and more than one-third of those who would still choose medicine would not choose to practice in California.

In a letter written to the House Judiciary Committee this spring PIC-Wisconsin Insurance Company requested that the Illinois General Assembly require medical malpractice insurance companies to release the company-by-company actuarial data so that it would have a better opportunity to write new or more business in Illinois. But ISMIE opposes legislation that would do exactly that in Illinois. If ISMIE desires competition to reduce insurance rates, then why is it opposed to making public the individual company actuarial and closed claims data, as it is in almost every other state? And, yes, companies even use this data to undercut the premiums of existing insurance companies to the delight of doctors who pocket the savings. What a concept!

Illinois regulators have no authority to reject a rate increase in medical malpractice insurance, so long as there are at least two companies writing coverage in the State. Regulators also do not have any authority to reject a rate increase before it takes effect. Therefore, in 30 years, no rate increase by a medical malpractice insurer has ever been rejected. Maybe our insurance regulations need to change.

Please vote "NO" on Amendment 4 to Senate Bill 276 and vote yes on a separate bill instituting long-overdue insurance reforms.

Very truly yours,

NAME

ADDRESS

TELEPHONE NUMBER