Posted on Dec 07, 2009
Tort reform poses a danger to public safety and welfare argues New York State Bar Association President Michael Gelnick in an essay in the New York Daily News, "Enough With the Tort Reform Myths." 

Here's one of the best arguments as to why tort reform endangers the American public:

Repeated studies have shown that approximately 100,000 people die each year due to medical malpractice in our nation's hospitals. These are not simply bad outcomes that were unavoidable; they are instances where physicians or hospitals failed to meet the normal standard of care - where other physicians deemed the damage done to have been avoidable.

If a hospital, for example, allows an expectant mother to lie in one of its labor rooms, fails to notice for several hours that the fetal monitor shows the fetus in distress, and the child is born severely brain damaged, should that institution be protected from a lawsuit? How is that family going to pay for a lifetime of care for their child? What incentive is that hospital going to have to correct its procedures to prevent such an incident from ever happening again?

 

 

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