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     BUSH'S JUNK CLAIM ABOUT JUNK LAWSUITS

1/18/2005

It would be funny watching George W running around the country on his 
little stick horse, pretending to be a "reformer" – if it was not so 
sad, so wrong.

His latest war whoop is that, by gollies, he wants to reform the 
so-called tort laws so HMOs, hospitals, doctors, and drug companies 
can't be driven out of business by us patients who sue them when their 
practices harm us. Bush's handlers sent him to Collinsville, Illinois, 
just outside of St. Louis, where he held a photo-op and labeled both St. 
Clair and Madison counties as "judicial hell holes." He noted that 720 
malpractice and wrongful death suits have been filed there against area 
practitioners in the past seven years, with jury awards causing enormous 
economic damage to them and curtailing health care in the area.

The issue of tort law has long been the prerogative of state 
governments, but George says it now must be federalized because, he says 
that "junk lawsuits" are proliferating all over. Juries, he wailed, are 
handing out such massive judgments to patients who sue that entire 
hospitals, groups of doctors, and other medical businesses are shutting 
down.

Problem is, it just ain't so. The watchdog group, Public Citizen, found 
that of the 720 cases that George cited, only 14 resulted in jury 
verdicts. And only seven of those verdicts sided with the patients. 
Excuse me, but seven verdicts in seven years is hardly a federal crisis.

Moreover, Bush's proposed remedy is to cap pain-and-suffering damages at 
$250,000 per case. Yet, in the two counties cited by George as judicial 
hell holes, only one case – one! – resulted in a jury award that 
exceeded this cap. Again, this is hardly a runaway system requiring 
federal intervention.

To put some truth on Bush's lies about "junk" lawsuits – and to help 
defend your legal right to hold bad medical practitioners accountable 
for their damages – call Public Citizen: 202-588-7741.