The truth about medical malpractice
Michael Townes Watson, author of America’s Tunnel Vision—How Insurance Companies’ Propaganda Is Corrupting Medicine and Law, has an excellent post at TortDeform about the false hysteria over medical malpractice.
The media has swallowed, and is still reeling with heartburn over, the acid propaganda promulgated by the insurance industry about trial lawyers. Chris Matthews, who always wants to appear to “know the truth,” blasted Elizabeth Edwards, claiming that John Edwards profession was “running doctors out of Pennsylvania.” He takes this position, despite the fact that the insurance party line was dispelled in Chris Matthews’ own hometown newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, way back in 2004, at the height of what the insurance companies fraudulently labeled as the “malpractice crisis.”
Watson, who lives in New York City where he writes and lectures about civil justice issues, cites Public Citizen’s January 2007 report, “The Great Medical Malpractice Hoax.” That report used stats from a federal database to show that contrary to media reports, the actual amount paid out in malpractice claims has been on the decline.