Letters to the Editor
Chicago Tribune

To the Editor:

As we are buoyed by a spirit of national unification emanating from our nation’s Capitol, it seems incongruous that Illinois Trial Lawyers Association president, Philip Corboy, Jr., presses his divisive campaign to deny all in Illinois reasonable access to quality health care. In his Individuals’ Rights over Corporate Rights treatise (Tribune Jan. 20), Mr. Corboy attempts to diminish the impact of non-economic damage caps on outlandish jury awards, which took effect as part of the state’s 2005 medical malpractice reform law. Mr. Corboy overlooks that the reform law calls for unlimited awards for economic damages – everything needed to care for injured patients for as long as they might need it.

In reviewing the Cook County record, where a clear majority of the state’s trial lawyers work, jury awards for non-economic damages (pain and suffering) increased 247 percent over a six-year period from 1998-2003 from just under $900,000 to more than $3.1 million. As a result, medical malpractice insurance rates soared, forcing many physicians to leave for states with fairer reform statutes, or to retire early. Consequently, many Illinois patients were left without adequate medical care, especially in specialized medical fields. 

Enactment of medical liability reforms have improved the health care environment here. Medical professionals have returned. Stable malpractice insurance premiums are a major contributor to that improvement. As an interesting aside, fees in medical malpractice cases are most often based on a hefty percentage of the jury’s award. Perhaps that’s why trial lawyers are fighting so hard in the courts to unravel these reforms.

Mr. Corboy argues the Illinois Supreme Court has twice before thrown out the law; yet he fails to mention that, this time, the state legislature took extraordinary care in crafting reforms to meet the constitutional objections raised previously by the high court. At the end of the day, it is the vast number of residents of Illinois who may be denied reasonable access to quality health care if reforms are rolled back and the legal bonanza of medical liability lawsuits thrives once more.

Sincerely,

Shastri Swaminathan, M.D.
President
Illinois State Medical Society

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