Iowa Citizen Action Network

Civil Justice and Comsumer Protection

Statement by Betty Ahrens

Statement by Betty Ahrens

On Senator Frist's Ill-Conceived Medical Malpractice Legislation - April 21, 2006

Good morning and thank you for coming. I am Betty Ahrens, Executive Director with the Iowa Citizen Action Network. We’re here today to set the record straight on federal medical malpractice legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, under marching orders from the giant insurance corporations, is attempting to push through a bill that will prove disastrous for patients harmed as a result of gross medical negligence by capping the amount of damages they can recover.

This legislation represents yet another misbegotten attempt to shackle the civil justice system – a system that has served us well since the founding of our republic. The courts permit even the weakest among us to confront the most powerful and extract a measure of accountability from those that act irresponsibly. Under this proposal, people who lose a limb, are horribly disfigured, or suffer permanent brain damage or paralysis will be deprived of the justice they deserve.

Today, with Senator Frist in town to promote this ill-conceived idea, we thought we would place a human face on the legislation and provide the public with an inkling of just how much damage it could cause.

Krystal Lehman comes to us today from Shenandoah, in Southwest Iowa. A few months ago, Krystal was taken to the hospital for exploratory surgery for what was thought to be appendicitis.

What resulted was nothing short of a tragedy and a nightmare for her parents. It is Exhibit A in the case against capping damages in malpractice cases just to put more money in the pockets of the insurance industry.

There was nothing wrong with Krystal’s appendix but during surgery, the doctor notices that her abdomen was filling with blood. Rather than check for the source of the bleeding, he sewed her up and sent her to the recovery room.

Four hours later, after nurses and her parents could not awaken her, Krystal was returned to the operating room where – again – they found her abdomen full of blood. This time the doctors were forced to cut off circulation to her legs in order to assure that her brain received enough oxygen. By the time they rushed her to another hospital, the damage to her legs was so severe they had to amputate part of her right foot.

Why did this happen? Well, it seems the doctor perforated her aorta and other arteries with his surgical tools and never bothered to find the source of the blood. Now Krystal faces further surgery – she will lose the bottoms of both of her legs.

Also with us today is Teressa Kuder, a registered nurse in from Altoona. Her grandmother, Mildred Edwards, who lived in Indianola, fractured her hip back in January 1998 at the age of 92. It was properly repaired but her regular physician turned ill. Her case was turned over to another doctor who, three days after surgery, sent Mildred to a rehabilitation center here in Des Moines, about 20 miles away.

Within a week she began developing bed sores. The doctor who was supposed to treat Mildred never visited the facility, sending instead a physician’s assistant who failed to detect the sores until they were pointed out. Those sores, on her back and feet, got so bad that by the time she finally was returned to the hospital Mildred developed gangrene. Doctors considered amputating her feet but she declined, finally succumbing on Feb. 14, 1998, six weeks after routine hip surgery.

If Senator Frist and others in Washington get their way, the amount of money Krystal and Mildred’s can expect to recover from this terrible and excruciating experience will be limited. Krystal is an intelligent and otherwise healthy young woman. She’ll certainly be able to get a job when she’s old enough so she can’t expect much in the way of lost wages.

Yet, she will go through her entire life as a double amputee. Under our current law, a jury of her fellow citizens somehow tries to put a dollar value on what that means. But under legislation supported by Senator Frist, Krystal could collect no more than $250,000 from the negligence of her doctor.

Somehow Senator Frist – it is extremely hard to refer to him as Doctor Frist on this occasion – thinks that’s fair and that Krystal and Mildred’s loving family should be grateful for this atrocious treatment. After all, doctors and insurance companies need money, so she should just take what they give her and shut up.

Well this is America and most people understand that what Senator Frist and the other tools of the insurance industry are attempting to do is wrong. Our Congress should be a tool to help ALL Americans receive justice, but this legislation would highjack our democracy for the profits of the insurance industry.

Senator Frist and the insurance industry would have us believe they are doing this for the benefit of consumers. Don’t believe it. The rationales for this legislation are filled with deceptions.

Iowa is not losing doctors because of high medical malpractice insurance rates. The number of physicians in Iowa grew from 5,549 in 1996 to 6,288 in 2004. That means the number of doctors per 100,000 Iowans went from 192 in 1995 to 213 in 2004.

We all know that the cost of health care in this country is spiraling out of control. But these rising costs have nothing to do with the medmal insurance rates, and lot to do with the greed of the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Today, costs associated with medical malpractice amount to less than two-thirds of one percent of all medical costs, roughly the same percentage as 20 years ago. This is a blip in the total cost of health care, and it is disingenuous at best to suggest that medical malpractice is the cause of the current health care crisis.

Still, Senator Frist and his ilk want you to believe lawsuits filed by decent people like Krystal Lehman and the family of Mildred Edwards are driving physicians out of business and contributing to increased health care costs. As these numbers make clear, that claim is not true and Sen. Frist should be ashamed of misleading the American public.

Could it possibly be he is more concerned about the profits generated by HCI, the malpractice insurance company founded by his family, than the justice afforded victims of medical negligence and abuse? It sure seems that way.

Now permit me to turn it over to Krystal and her family who can tell you much better than I can why this legislation should be stopped.