FRIVOLOUS LAWSUITS AND $5 CO-PAYS

I recently came across a news story about a woman from Staten Island who went to her doctor's office complaining of chest pains. The pain progressed to a full heart attack and an ambulance was called and she was to be rushed to the hospital. However, the woman, lying on a gurney, and breathing through tubes, was not allowed to leave the doctor's office until she paid the applicable $5 cash co-pay required by her insurance policy. According to the news story, the doctor's receptionist ran to the
gurney carrying Barbara Antonelli, demanding the co-pay. Ms. Antonelli went through her purse for the cash before the ambulance would leave. Barbara, pictured at right, has apparently recovered from the heart attack.

Many have pointed to the story as evidence of the greed of doctors and insurance companies, putting payment of even trifling sums of money before concern for the patient. Some have gone so far as to suggest that an incident like this shows we need an overhaul of the health system, insurance system, yadda, yadda, yadda.

As unfortunate an incident as this may have been, however, it no more calls for insurance and health care reform than the "McDonald's coffee case" called for the reform of our legal system. I believe that a large measure of what we call "tort reform" has been the result of the creative efforts of corporate and insurance public relation departments. Our legal system was not damaged. Its just that injured folks don't have much of an advertising budget.

Everyone is against frivolous lawsuits. Just like they are against unnecessary wars, excess government spending, and unlawful drug use. The very wording used allows for no other reaction. The insurance companies and corporations, have, through a steady stream of advertising, rammed the phrase down our throats to the point that much of the public equates the term "frivolous lawsuit" with any and all claims. Well, not quite all claims. Make that every claim but their own.

The reality is that most people do not get accidentally injured during there lives, and no one ever expects to. So, when most people think about injury claims they are not thinking about something that will ever concern them personally. They don't pay attention to the fate of injury victims the way they pay attention to the price of a new car or a washing machine. This has proven fortunate indeed for big business. Through the inspired use of advertising, these companies have trivialized human suffering, reducing it to a line item on the corporate balance sheet, to be cut or eliminated like all other costs of doing business. The quest for tort reform is not much different than the quest for lower steel prices, lower corporate tax rates, and lower labor costs.

Justice has never been the goal of tort reform. Increased corporate income has. Cut off access to the courts for those injured by our negligence, the corporations say, so we can devote our income to the core business activities like providing triple-digit million dollar buy out packages to the CEO we just fired, as well as providing triple-digit million dollar endorsement deals to celebrities who wear, drive or brush their teeth with our products. If our profits are protected by restricting access to the courts for the common injured citizen of this country, we can invest in new equipment and manufacturing facilities we will build, in Bangladesh, for instance.

So, the corporate PR folks scour the news for the odd lawsuit where some unfortunate shoots himself in the eye with a toy slingshot, and sues Mattel, and plasters it over the media as proof that our legal system has gone haywire. These corporate types have done a great job. They have succeeded in characterizing the corporate giants as the Davids that need to be protected from the common, everyday, injured individual. Think of the insurance industry, which is based on the purchase of a product, "the policy", which the seller, "the insurance company", hopes never to pay on. Making these companies seem sympathetic is a real achievement ii trading on the ignorance of the American public.

Counting on such ignorance, the corporations and insurance companies now try to apply the term "frivolous" to any claim filed. What is needed, they say, are laws that will protect the insurance companies and corporation, so they need never fear that anyone can make a claim against them again. The cry for tort reform goes on endlessly, and what you will find, is that no amount of tort reform is ever enough. In Michigan, where injured persons have been "tort reformed" to devastation, there are still appeals from groups like the Chamber of Commerce, that business needs even more. The quest for lower corporate costs and higher profits never ends.

So, when your insurance company advertises, through such groups, as the "American Association for Tort Reform, Goodness, Niceness and Virtue", that we need more laws to prevent more frivolous lawsuits, consider what they are really doing. They are using your premium dollars to lobby for laws that will let them keep your money without ever paying out the benefits they promised to provide. So, what are you getting for your premium dollars? Nothing, the insurance companies hope. Well, maybe some more slick ads for more tort reform.

And, Mr. and Mrs. Average citizen, rest assured that if ever you are injured, that the laws the insurance companies and corporations told you were necessary to protect them from the crazy suits, will be used to have your claim, however reasonable and meritorious, thrown out of court. Because tort reform laws don't just apply to the isolated, goofball claim, they apply to everybody. And it will apply to the very people who say we need to stop "frivolous claims". Because tomorrow's frivolous claim will be yours.

But you won't see many ads telling you that injured folks are getting a raw deal in this state. They don't have the advertising budgets the insurance companies and corporations do. They are trying to survive in a state that has so skewed the system, that the injured are blamed for having the bad taste to get injured in the first place.

So, Ms. Antonelli won't serve as the poster child for an overhaul of the medical or insurance system. Nor should it. Common sense and the current system can be trusted to take care of an incident like this. Tort reformers should let the legal system use common sense and 230 years of experience take care of itself. Unfortunately, the common sense lobby doesn't have much of an advertising budget.