If you have a mailbox or a TV you’ve probably been bombarded with emotional ads urging you to vote one way or the other on Initiative 330. Please take the time to research what’s at stake. This isn’t an issue that should be decided by a few sensational sound bites.
Some entities have suggested the best way to deal with this important and complex issue is to let the Legislature do its job. Sounds smart; unfortunately, lawmakers have failed to act on this issue for several years.
In the meantime, we have seen health-care costs skyrocket and many doctors (including myself) abandon providing high-risk medical care because we simply can’t afford to be in practice.
The impact on patients is great. Patients are being redirected from emergency rooms who no longer have specialists to serve on call. The number of doctors able to deliver babies and provide pre-natal care is dwindling, putting mothers and children at risk. In my clinic alone, 13 of 15 family physicians that once provided obstetrical care no longer do. Not only are physicians leaving our state, they are not being replaced. It’s hard to train and recruit new doctors with the dismal prospect of not being able to afford to do business.
Why should you care as a taxpayer? First, you pay the bills. Surging malpractice insurance costs mean less of your health-care dollar is spent on medical care. Another burden you bear under the current system is the expense of defensive medicine – tests and procedures that may not be medically necessary but are ordered to safeguard against lawsuits. Most government and industry studies conclude this costs the system billions of dollars each year. Real reform will stop these wasteful practices and save millions of dollars in Washington alone.
Opponents of I-330 want you to believe that if I-330 passes, people who are injured will not be fairly compensated. Not true. I-330 does not limit economic damages. Injured patients can recover an unlimited amount for lost wages, medical bills, long-term care, and anything else quantifiable. All that is limited is the amount that can be recovered for non-economic (pain and suffering) damages because these are nearly impossible to assess fairly and consistently. The cap in I-330 would limit these damages to $350,000 for the most part, although in certain cases with multiple defendants, the limit will be $1,050,000.
Meanwhile, I-330 would also limit the amount lawyers can charge. Currently it’s not unheard of for an attorney to end up with 50 percent or more of a settlement. Capping these fees will get more of the money to injured patients and their families. Attorneys will still be able to take on clients too poor to pay for hourly rates, but as the award grows in size the attorneys’ percentage taken will shrink.
Finally, nothing in I-330 would force a patient to give up their day in court. Instead, the initiative requires any agreement for arbitration between a doctor and a patient be written in clear language, using plain English – so no one is confused about what is being signed.
Despite the millions of dollars spent trying to convince people otherwise, no doctor will be forced to offer such an agreement, and no patient will be forced to sign one. In California these agreements have been available for 30 years and a recent study discovered that only 2 percent of all physicians statewide required them as a condition of care. So, if you do not want to sign one you will have plenty of options. (And federal law prohibits patients who need urgent or emergency care from being turned away for any reason.)
What’s being lost in the rhetoric is the fact that the reforms in I-330 have worked in other states. In the three decades since California passed a similar package its medical malpractice premiums increased 160 percent, compared to Washington, where premiums shot up 550 percent during the same time period. Texas has seen its largest liability insurer cut rates three times since passing caps in 2003. This has resulted in tens of millions of dollars of savings for the health-care system and patients. Most importantly, Texas’ access to care has dramatically improved – 3,000 more doctors have begun practicing there in just two years. Think about the difference even 1,000 more doctors could make in patients’ lives here in Washington.
The issue of tort reform is not simple, but it is not as complex as some have made it out to be. It comes down to finding a balance between our duty to compensate injured parties fairly and the need of the community to have access to the health care we all rely on. That’s what doctors are trying to do with I-330.
Please help us: Vote yes on I-330 and no on I-336.
Stephen Dahlberg, M.D., is a family practitioner who has been serving patients in Washington for almost 20 years. He stopped obstetrical care this year, citing skyrocketing malpractice premiums.
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