GregsOpinion.com

Start off by reading BOR-Jim'sAndrew's take on a Star Telegram column by John Cummings - president of the Tarrant County Trial Lawyers Association. After that, go to the Gary Cowan that it references. Then go to the Linda Campbell column that IT refers to.

Had enough?

Well, color me confused on this point that the doctor of the bunch (Cowan) raises:

I have made changes in my practice to try to decrease the chance of financial devastation due to some rapacious attorney. I used to take emergency call at five different hospitals. I've dropped off the staff of all but one. I get more sleep and assume less risk.

Do we doctors like doing this? No! At least here in Texas there is now a $250,000 cap on "pain and suffering." Nonetheless, my liability insurance went up another 10 percent this year.

Most other states have no such protections, and a medical access crisis is in progress.

Amazing ... Cowan, who is obviously against any legal protections on the part of patients, admits that he has taken steps to get lawyers out of his hair, concedes the legal caps brought on by Prop. 12 ... and then admits to seeing his own rates go up. Hmmm ... could it be because the increase in rates never had anything to do with trial lawyers in the first place?

Cummings makes a few salient rebuttals:

G.E. Medical Protective, a company that insures 20 percent of the state's physicians, recently increased its rates by 10 percent and changed its products to avoid regulation by the Texas Department of Insurance. This was in response to the state's denial of its previous request to raise rates by 19 percent.

The Joint Underwriting Association asked for a 35 percent rate increase. The largest malpractice insurer in the state, TMLT, agreed to lower its rates by 12 percent, but it had raised its rates more than 100 percent in the previous two years.

Why? Because doctors and legislators are either unable or unwilling to stand up to the malpractice carriers and demand change.

With the backing of the Texas Medical Association, legislators could have required mandatory rate reductions in return for stripping away a patient's right to recover full damages. They did not.

They could have included a provision repealing the damage caps if rates did not decline. They did not.

They could have placed the insurance executives under oath and subject to the penalties of perjury before giving testimony about the true basis of the insurance crisis. They did not.

And so the plundering continues.

Not too surprisingly, several GOP types have begun to fret over the fact that they didn't accomplish their goal of lowering homeowners insurance rates as well.

Color me shocked. I'd have thought that the party bought & paid for by insurance companies surely would have taken a harder line on ensuring fairness out of said companies.
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