Voters are being asked to referee a political fight between doctors and attorneys on the topic of medical malpractice with two initiatives on this year’s Nov. 8 ballot.
The debate is so heated that the two sides have swamped TV airwaves with ads urging voters to approve either doctor-backed Initiative 330 or lawyer-backed Initiative 336.
A third group has entered the fray, urging voters to reject I-330. Using the motto “read the fine print,” it may offer confused voters the best advice on trying to understand both initiatives.
One of the leaders of the No on I-330 group, Barbara Flye, acknowledged the two initiatives may be among the most complicated ever put before state voters.
“I am fearful that if voters don’t have the time to find out what’s in (the initiatives), they’re not going to be able to make an effective choice when they get their ballot,” she said.
Initiative 330 is aimed at reforming the state’s malpractice laws and curbing malpractice insurance costs. Backers say rising malpractice costs are driving doctors out of the state. One of its most controversial proposals is a cap, generally $350,000, on the amount of money patients may receive for noneconomic pain and suffering.
The Everett Clinic is one of its backers. It has contributed $175,000 to the campaign, said Rick Cooper, executive director.
The organization, which has nine medical clinics, two outpatient surgery centers and 270,000 patients, paid nearly $6 million last year in medical malpractice insurance costs, Cooper said.
“We believe this is a step in the right direction,” Cooper said of I-330. “We want a safer environment for patients where there are fewer bad outcomes.”
Rising malpractice insurance rates have led to a decline in the number of the Everett Clinic’s obstetrics doctors providing delivery services, from 12 to eight, he said, and the number of family practice physicians now delivering babies has dropped from 15 to three.
States that have enacted malpractice reforms find that access to health care improves, said Thomas Curry, executive director of the Washington State Medical Association.
“That is the easiest criteria for voters to use” in evaluating the initiative, he said. “Do I want more or less access to (health care) services in my community?”
There’s a second, competing measure on the ballot, Initiative 336.
It also is aimed at malpractice issues, but also covers lawsuits, consumer information on “bad” doctors and adding two public members to the state board that disciplines health care workers.One of its best-known proposals is a “three strikes, you’re out,” clause, which could prevent the state from licensing health care providers who commit three or more incidents of medical malpractice within a 10-year period.
It is led by trial lawyers and Dylan Malone of Everett, a noneditorial employee of The Herald. Malone and his wife, Christine, became activists in patient rights issues after she was given improper medications during the delivery of their son, Ian, in 1999. Ian died last year.
Flye, who leads the anti-I-330 campaign, also is an advocate of I-336.
“The conversations I’ve had with people who have been victims of medical negligence … believe very strongly that if I-336 were around at the time of their injury, it wouldn’t have happened or the physician would have been disciplined far earlier,” she said.
I-336 takes a more comprehensive approach to malpractice, she said. It would prevent “price gouging” of doctors by the insurance industry, requiring a public hearing on malpractice insurance rate increases of more than 15 percent.
Some worry about the fallout if both measures pass.
Ron Ward, immediate past president of the Washington State Bar Association, said he thinks attorneys have been “demonized” and “stigmatized” by the I-330 campaign. He worries that if both measures pass, resulting constitutional challenges would leave the public with a patchwork of regulations.
Others, including state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, are urging voters to turn down both initiatives.
“This is an issue that shouldn’t ever be written by special interests on one side or the other,” Kreidler said. “It’s clearly one that should be addressed by the Legislature.”
Reporter Sharon Salyer: 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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