Editing 75-11-A3 (section)

=== Transcript ===
Malpractice insurance is an issue which can affect everyone. Today my daughter Maureen Reagan is back with her viewpoint. She'll be right with you.

All across the country doctors are faced with prohibitive increases in malpractice insurance premiums and patients are faced with a lack of medical service while hospitals stare at imminent bankruptcy. The doctors blame the insurance companies for increasing the cost of their coverage by thousands of dollars a year. The insurance companies blame the legal profession for gigantic court awards in malpractice litigation. To complete the circle, the attorneys insist they shouldn't even be included in this discussion. The real villain they say is the medical profession for failing to police its own members.

Those who should be complaining are too confused to know where to place the blame, the patients, all of us who depend upon medical expertise for our various ailments and when necessary to save our lives. In trying to see the whole picture it seems to me there are areas in which all of the principles could be more responsive to each other and the public's needs. So while legislatures in every state debate legislation and watch the example of the plan just passed in Indiana, I have a few suggestions to put forth for consideration.

Why can't there be a medical review board in each state which could establish guidelines for the keeping of medical records and patient consent forms, thus providing better protection for the patients and the doctors? Such a board could be empowered to discipline doctors who have displayed a degree of negligence detrimental to their public trust. And my second thought is that only a handful of insurance companies deal in malpractice insurance. What if state governments were to offer a series of tax credits to other insurance companies as an incentive to share the burden of this type of policy which is so vital to the public welfare?

In the Indiana plan, one of the important provisions is a ceiling on legal contingency fees at 15 percent in malpractice litigation. Contingency fees are necessary because most of us could not afford thousands of dollars in legal fees in advance of a lawsuit, so we get the necessary legal assistance by paying a percentage of the award by a court. However we now see most attorneys charging 50 percent contingency fees plus court costs and this leaves the victim with the short end of the awarded amount of money. Indiana's proposed 15 percent fee seems a little low, how about 25 percent plus costs? And perhaps the legal profession could volunteer such standards.

The Indiana plan also provides for a commission which hears claims to decide if they should go to court. I would suggest enlarging that to a voluntary arbitration board as an alternative for cases involving small claims or where settlement is more desirable than court delays. The important aspect of my thinking is the hope that government action can be averted. The Indiana plan provides for minimum and maximum malpractice coverage with the taxpayer assuming any award over that amount. If the professions can find ways to handle their problems then most legislation wouldn't be necessary and the government wouldn't have to become more involved in health care.

Abraham Lincoln said that, "Government should do for the people only those things they cannot do so well for themselves." Perhaps the specter of government action will induce the necessary reforms which we need to assure the health and safety of all our citizens.

I'm Maureen Reagan and thank you for listening.

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