Other politicians, like NY’s new Governor Andrew Cuomo, will rob them, infant victims of medical malpractice, of necessary, minimal, long-term medical coverage.
Cuomo wants to put a $250,000 lifetime cap on medical compensation for brain injury to a child caused by medical malpractice. This may sound like a lot of money, but in the course of a lifetime, medical bills being what they are and what they will undoubtedly climb to, it is very likely far from adequate.
But now is the time to screw anyone and anything for profit or political expediency. This is how things are in Obamaworld, continuation of Bushworld. Profits over people. Profits over helpless little people -- very little people. Obama has made it safe and stylish for the Democrats to be as much outright bastards as the Republicans. Obama has his catfood commission. Cuomo has his “Medicaid Redesign Team” including some strong-willed, well compensated industry lobbyists. Familiar playbook?
How low can these corporate pimped ones go? It seems bottomless.
The mythology of “tort reform” is useful to Cuomo to court the conservative supporters, especially the authoritarian following, low-informed ones. “Tort reform” is the red herring that well-compensated lobbyists use to distract from the real extortion by the medical industry going on. The call declares that medical malpractice victims and their families are really the evil victimizers. Yes, of course fraud happens. But it is minuscule compared to the medical/insurance industry’s profiteering racket presently being perpetrated on the US citizenry.
Remember how the medical industry lobbyists were the actual writers of most of Obamacare? No room at the table for anyone seriously pro-citizen. But thereafter, the Republicans insisted Obamacare still was not kind enough to the medical industry, which shows how anti-citizen our political elite actually is on both sides of the aisle, as well as in the red or blue Governors’ mansions, which is becoming more and more obvious across the country.
New York is a blue state? Not any more. Or blue as in depressed. Emotionally and financially blue, I guess, except those golden top percenters raking in phenomenal profits.
We indeed live in extraordinary and merciless times.
The faux-outrage about tort reform uses the schadenfreude tendencies of low-informed, authoritarian following and stressed citizens who want to withhold medical compensation from their fellow humans.
This is what Ralph Nader has to say about tort reform and the insurance industry in an article entitled, “Selling Out Injured Babies’ Rights.”
Governor Cuomo needs to review the facts on medical malpractice. First he should know that supporters of tort "deform" invoke one myth after another: a litigation explosion, juries automatically ruling in favor of plaintiffs and routinely awarding punitive damages, an economy shattered by these awards. Each of these notions is demonstrably false. Only a tiny percentage of persons injured bring lawsuits, and an even tinier percentage of those who do receive large verdicts. Limiting victims' rights is an anti-democratic solution to a trumped-up problem.
Second, a driving force behind this dishonest campaign is the insurance industry. Whenever, over the years, insurers face low interest rates and declining stock investments, they start the drumbeat against justice for victims. They’ve made a particular cause against liabilities for medical malpractice. Instead of demanding disciplinary action against incompetent physicians, urging medical associations to police their own ranks, the insurance industry lobbies state and federal legislatures to curtail victims' rights and remedies in courts of law. At the insurance industry’s behest, their physician policyholders have joined the call.
Why do physicians allow themselves to be tools of insurance companies that gouge them especially when they are not among the incompetent few who account for most malpractice claims (five percent of doctors are involved in roughly 50 percent of malpractice payouts)? One answer is that insurance companies frighten physicians with false data suggesting that malpractice suits run amok. A persuasive case can be made that there are far too few malpractice suits. The 1999 Institute of Medicine study estimated that gross malpractice in hospitals alone takes up to 98,000 American lives a year and causes hundreds of thousands of serious injuries. Yet various studies show that roughly 90% of people harmed by medical malpractice do not even file suit.
If you total the entire amount of premiums physicians pay in a year for their malpractice insurance and divide it evenly by all the physicians practicing in the United States, the average annual premium is less than $10,000 per doctor. Very manageable. So why are some doctors paying $50,000 or $100,000 a year to their malpractice insurers? Because the profit hungry companies have learned to over-classify their risk pools, thereby charging exorbitant amounts to specific specialists like obstetricians and orthopedic surgeons. In addition, because insurers fail to surcharge the few incompetent physicians in these specialties, the competent specialists pay for more than they should.
Additionally cruel concerning this NY Governor was the assumption by many that Andrew would exhibit at least some of his father’s, Governor Mario Cuomo’s, empathy for the underdog. Not going to be the case, clearly. Andrew didn’t even bother pretending during his campaign. (Seems like assuming a political son will mirror the sensibility of a political father is a hard to learn lesson in this country.) We get the father’s last name, but not his values.
Also, besides his dad’s positive name recognition, Andrew Cuomo had the advantage of confronting a Republican opponent, Carl Paladino, who sounded more and more extreme ... all right, insane ... with every sound bite as the election season went on. Andrew Cuomo’s victory was a relative cakewalk.
So Andrew Cuomo, instead of safeguarding the crying needs of an economically terrorized citizenry, is picking up on the Republican/Blue Dog austerity drum beat. Even the seemingly omnipresent David Koch, according to a recent email from NY Green Party’s Howie Hawkins, contributed $50,000 to Cuomo’s campaign. Christine Quinn, Speaker of the NY City Council, in a recent local tv interview made it clear pigs would fly before Andrew Cuomo would consider raising taxes on the rich (my words, not hers, btw, but she was VERY definite). We have to find other resources to reduce the deficit because of Cuomo's strong stance on that she declared. According to Howie Hawkins, $5 billion could have been subtracted from the $9 billion NY State deficit if the recent tax breaks hadn’t recently been bestowed to the very wealthy.
Still, why such a “draconian” (Nader’s term) measure for this Governor? Brain-injured babies? Come on!!!!!
Ralph Nader explains that Cuomo is simply being chillingly pragmatic.
The short answer: political expediency. Credible observers say Governor Cuomo needs to give the health insurance industry a financial benefit in exchange for the health insurance industry not economically punishing hospitals workers. And to top it off with a touch that would make Machiavelli proud, the Governor placed this initiative in his budget proposal. This means that for the New York State Assembly and Senate to vote against this draconian measure used to seal a political deal, the legislators would have to vote down the entire state budget.
It is shameful that the Governor would use his creativity and intellect to help the health industry at the expense of helpless babies who are victims of medical malpractice.
Many in the health care and insurance industry seem to regard the civil justice system as a nuisance that threatens to destroy our economy and way of life. In reality, America’s civil justice system plays an indispensable role. When the rights of injured consumers are vindicated in court, our society benefits in countless ways: compensating victims and their families for shattering losses (with the cost borne by the wrongdoers rather than taxpayers); preventing future injuries by deterring dangerous health care and other practices, spurring safety innovation; and educating the public to risks associated with certain products and services. These legal rights provide society with its moral and ethical fiber by defining appropriate norms of conduct.
Do you really have to destroy the welfare of brain-injured babies to raise money for struggling hospital workers? One more time robbing citizen, tiny citizen, Peter, to pay struggling citizen Paul. So Obama-like. God forbid, let's not ask for a penny from the corporate pirates, the amorally profiteering elite of America, that caused the economic crisis and then was rewarded for it.
And once again, concerning judicial recourse, another destructive whack at civil liberties in America.
Cuomo, another political, morally compass-less gamesman. Well, Andy Cuomo knows who can seriously butter his political bread. Not us. He will let the rest of us eat the proverbial “cake,” I guess.
NY Governor Andrew Cuomo. In the billionaires’ corner, not the babies’.
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