I saw two recent articles which I thought were very interesting and worthy of note. The first involves Michigan state republican legislators who are trying to introduce a bill which would roll back the immunity granted in Michigan for drug companies from law suits. Some time ago the Michigan legislature in its political wisdom decided it wanted to attempt to lure drug companies to Michigan. In order accomplish that political goal, they offered drug manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies immunity from law suits even in situations where they were negligent and put drugs on the market which they knew or should have known would cause substantial harm and even death to individuals. The upshot of that effort was that drug companies did not come to Michigan and have in fact been leaving the state at a steady pace. Taking peoples rights away to hold drug manufacturers responsible when they recklessly put pharmaceuticals on the market which kill or seriously injure people did not accomplish its goal. But what was the cost to the people of the state of Michigan? We are talking about mothers and fathers and grandparents and even children who have died as a result of negligently manufactured or marketed drugs left without any legal rights. This would include the right to get lost income of a person who was supporting their family, who was killed as a result of overly zealous drug manufacturer marketing their wares without letting the public know what they know about the dangers of that drug.
So even republicans are now repulsed by the legislation enacted by their own party not too many years ago. What I have never understood about the tort reformers is why they just don't come clean and let people know that it is really not insurance rates or over crowded court rooms which is driving their tort reform agendas. It is simply to allow corporations to do whatever they want without the possibility of being held responsible for those actions. There is a huge economic benefit to companies who become immune from accountability. Let Michigan be a lesson to those stomping up and down about tort reform.
The next article I saw was a top republican attorney and Washington insider who was giving a speech about the problems with insurance premiums. The jist of the article was that while overall expenditures on malpractice payouts and transactional costs have steadily declined by hundreds of millions of dollars these last years, premiums have gone up exponentially. So how does the overall litigation and settlement cost go down, when insurance rates for doctors, lawyers and everyone else is going drastically in the other direction? The answer is that many insurance companies are simply poorly managed by fat cat executives who are overpaid. They have to make up for their own deficiencies and business acts including poor investment decisions, by taking money from those who they insure. This is pretty incredible considering insurance commissioners around the country are allowing so many exclusions and limitations in insurance policies that there is barely coverage in the first place.
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