Illinois Lawmakers Protect Negligent Doctors and Condemn Victims
This week, the Illinois House and Senate approved a medical malpractice reform bill that includes caps on non-economic damages. The bill will now go to Governor Blagojevich, who is expected to sign the bill into law. This is a catastrophic blow to patients and patients' rights in Illinois. Not only are the caps alone proven to have no effect on malpractice insurance rates, but the caps only serve to limit the recovery of those most seriously injured by negligent doctors.
The bill limits recovery of non-economic damages to $500,000 per doctor and $1 million per hospital. At first glance, this may seem like a lot of money but consider the results on a homemaker who had an unnecessary double mastectomy (it is linked here because it really happened). What sort of recovery would she be entitled to under the new Illinois law? Very little. She is entitled to payment of medical bills, future medical bills, and loss of future earnings. The victim here is a homemaker, so now we are down to medical bills. An award of the limit for pain and suffering may, and I emphasize may, just cover the cost of the litigation and attorney's fees.
In the end, the victim has both of her perfectly healthy breasts removed as the result of a negligent doctor and she gets...her medical bills paid for. How's that for 'jackpot justice'.
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