University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, September 30, 1987
Campus/Area
9
Insurance experts debate law
Experts disagree on changes in malpractice insurance law
By MICHAEL MERSCHEL Staff writer
The calm manner of discussion hid some sharp differences between three malpractice insurance experts who discussed tort reform yesterday afternoon in Green Hall.
Representatives of doctors and state insurance officials said the state needed to curtail rising insurer duties and increasing malpractice law restrictions that malpractice lawsuit restrictions wouldn't be fair to patients.
Jerry Slaughter, executive director of the Kansas Medical Society, said, "If you're a family practice doctor and your insurance payment is $25,000 to deliver 15 babies in rural Kansas, you're going to say, 'I just income' You can't generate that much income to pay that insurance policy."
But lawyer Richard Mason said it wasn't an explosion of lawsuits that caused the high rates. He cited statistics that showed the number of lawsuits being brought to trial had only grown at the same rate as the population.
Ted Fay of the Kansas Insurance Commissioner's office; Mason, executive director of the Kansas
Trial Lawyers Association; and Slaughter took part in a 50-minute panel discussion, moderated by Robert Jerry, professor of law.
About 50 people attended the discussion.
At issue was whether new laws should make it harder for malpractice suits to be brought against doctors, either by limiting damages against doctors, changing the way attorneys collect fees on malpractice cases or eliminating or changing jury trials for malpractice cases.
'v
You can't expect perfection out of physicians. They're only human, and they make mistakes.'
Jerry Slaughter Executive director Kansas Medical Society
Fay and Slaughter both said the need for changes in how malpractice suits were decided was critical.
ance industry wasn't being as hurt by high awards as it indicated because insurance companies made billions of dollars in profits each year.
Fay said that only two companies still offered malpractice insurance in Kansas and that they would quit offering it if they could.
Fay said that wasn't always true, and that juries didn't always realize the effect of their decisions.
Mason said that regardless of the money issues involved, unlimited trials were the only fair way to guarantee that injured parties were fairly compensated. Jurries now best what is fair and what isn't, he said.
Mason said if there were rising claims, it might be because there was more malpractice going on. But Slaughter said there was no link between a doctor's quality and his likelihood of being sued.
Slaughter said that the system was in error in demanding perfection from doctors, and that just because a doctor made the error in judgement, it didn't mean he was right.
But Mason claimed that the insur-
"You can't expect perfection out of physicians," he said. "They're only human, and they make mistakes."
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