Doctors, lawyers, pain and suffering

Re “Malpractice law may deny justice,” Dec. 29

California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) is not just an economic trade-off. It is a societal recognition that the benefits provided by doctors far outweigh the fact that they make mistakes from time to time. There are some medical malpractice cases that a lawyer won’t take because $250,000 just isn’t worth it, and that seems unfair. But there are many more times that a patient is healed and cured, sometimes with near miraculous results.

When we look at it broadly, MICRA makes sense. To put it more bluntly, we need the doctors more than we need the lawyers.

John Fortman

Santa Clarita

Prior to the enactment of MICRA, California was facing a crisis. Out-of-control medical liability costs were forcing physicians such as obstetrician-gynecologists, surgeons, anesthesiologists and other specialists out of California. Primary-care physicians such as internists and family doctors were forced to close their offices. Emergency rooms could not find physicians to respond for care.

MICRA has stabilized the healthcare system in California and helped reduce costs for everyone. Changing MICRA is really a simple cost-benefit analysis. Personal-injury lawyers want the law changed because they would make more money in attorney fees. But that change would also result in higher healthcare costs. When healthcare gets too expensive, fewer patients are able to afford care. To most people, that wouldn’t seem a beneficial trade-off.

Healthcare policy should focus on measures to improve access to doctors, not lawyers.

David H. Aizuss MD

President

L.A. County Medical Assn.

I can say firsthand that MICRA is unfair to the victims of malpractice. My family and I watched as my mother suffered for 2 1/2 years in intensive care from the effects of a botched gastric bypass surgery. We were fortunate that we found a lawyer who would take my mother’s case.

Through the process, our family was shocked to learn the limits of MICRA and how the system was designed to protect doctors, not patients who suffered from mistakes. I can understand limitations on awards, but to use a 1975 dollar amount for malpractice awards today is a disgrace to the ones who have put their trust in doctors but have been injured by them.

Maybe to level the playing field with MICRA, doctors should be required to charge 1975 prices. And as for my mother’s case, I am still waiting to see the settlement information posted on the state of California’s medical board website.

Lisa Smock

Long Beach

The Times pinpoints the problem in the first few paragraphs of the article: lawyers reluctant to come to the aid of possible victims of medical malpractice because “it wasn’t worth the money.” When was the last time a doctor refused to get out of bed at 2:30 a.m. to care for an injured or sick patient because “it wasn’t worth the money”?

Perhaps the solution is to inculcate an equal level of morals and ethics among trial lawyers rather than find better ways to enrich them.

Howard R. Krauss MD

Los Angeles

I am a physician and a lawyer. High malpractice insurance premiums made me quit obstetrics and gynecology. MICRA-restricted compensations make me quit medical malpractice cases.

Both ways, the public is being left behind, but no one cares.

Gunther R. Bauer

Rancho Palos Verdes