Scary fact sheet:

This is an excerpt from the White House's Medical Liability Reform fact sheet:

The President proposes that Congress take action to:

• Reserve punitive damages for cases where they are justified, and limit punitive damages to reasonable amounts.
  Is "reasonable" a non-COLA adjusted 250k?
  
  
• Provide for payments of judgments over time rather than in a single lump sum, to ensure that appropriate payments are there when patients need them.
  Real dollar awards will be significantly reduced. Delaying payments to "ensure they are there when the patient needs them" is a typical confidence-man trick.
  
  
• Ensure that old cases cannot be brought years after an event.
  There are many instances where treatment errors do not manifest themselves until much time has passed. Remember the DES-cancer issue?
  
  
• Provide that defendants pay judgments in proportion to their fault.
  Corporate America can relax, now that their deep pockets have been sewn shut by Bush.

posted by Quiddity at 1/16/2003 11:04:00 PM