Here is the latest on the two amendments passed and sponsored by the trial bar.

The Florida Hospital Association is pursuing its legal challenges to the two amendments, including a motion for injunction to keep the laws from taking immediate effect. The hospital association counsel said he wants this injunction so hospitals can seek guidance from the state Legislature on how to implement the laws.

There is a pervasive feeling in the medical community that these two amendments would chill peer reviews, violate federal privacy laws, and make it virtually impossible for high-risk specialists like neurosurgeons and obstetricians to stay in Florida, or come here from elsewhere, under an atmosphere of intimidation created by the passage of these amendments. The retroactive nature of the “three-strikes” amendment also can catch a number of physicians who have had malpractice judgments in the past.

The Florida trial bar has not made any attempt to challenge the physician-sponsored amendment to limit attorneys’ contingency fees, although that will be expected soon. The lawyers, before the election, have promised they would mount a legal challenge should it pass, which it did overwhelmingly.

It is too soon at this time to make out anything from these three amendments, pending these court challenges. But we will keep you posted.

To CHenry:

Physicians in Florida decided to pass that amendment to address a long-standing imbalance in our tort system where trial lawyers get 40 to 50% of malpractice awards, which can make them instant millionaires, at the expense of injured patients who deserve more of that money.

The high contingency fees have fostered a culture of lottery mentality, resulting in a substantial number of suits (70 to 80%)that are meritless and frivolous. These suits are expensive to defend, adding to the already high costs of malpractice premiums.

I know there is a lot of skepticism about the rationale for an amendment like this that strikes at the heart of a fee arrangement that has been deemed unethical in the rest of civilized world. The answer is simple: The state legislature, because of the influence of trial lawyers, failed to pass a bill last year which was predicated on caps to non-economic damages, modeled partly after the MICRA
in California. Florida physicians currently are paying two to three times as much as those in California.

As I said in my previous rant, there is not much that we can paint in the aftermath of the passage of these three amendments until the legal challenges are heard. The MICRA also caps lawyers’ fees, so this is nothing new.

a lot of doc’s refuse complicated cases.

fewer doc’s are providing comprehensive care.

Primary care doc’s are dwindling every year by the thousands when compared to 10 years ago.

welcome to the era of legalism.

Be honest, RGL. The goal had nothing to do with justice, and everything to do with diminishing the economic returns for the largest, most serious medical malpractice cases. Like “damages caps”, the “reform” was again aimed at the most seriously injured victims of medical malpractice.

Why isn’t our host, who continuously whinges about any interference with the “free market” in the context of the provision of medical care, up in arms about this interference with the free market? Or do we get a great big, hypocritical “that’s different”, because of personal animus toward trial lawyers and indifference toward victims of medical malpractice?