We remember and never forget certain dates in history such as 1492, December 7,
1941, 9/11, and other memorable dates. Today we may well add March 2, 2003, for
on this date a full page ad appeared in the New York Times entitled,
"America Needs a New System of Medical Justice." The ad goes into the
failure of the medical malpractice system. The sponsors are leaders within the
medical community.
Those of you have
read the CMS website know how we have been pushing for the overhaul of
healthcare and the medical malpractice legal system. And so we are gratified to
see that some of the nations most distinguished doctors at long last understand
that the legal system now in place dispenses no justice to victim or doctor.
Great damage has been inflicted on both groups.
Just two weeks ago
top staff of a member of the House Committee on Health asked CMS to write a
proposal to be added to an amendment on medical malpractice. We requested an
INDEPENDENT TASK FORCE to search for and solve "the culture of doctor
errors." And to also recommend the overhaul of the medical malpractice
system. The medical hierarchy now understands that the President’s cap of
$250,000 would in no way be an appropriate settlement for a life-changing
experience. It’s too simplistic and does not deal with some of the more
complex issues. CMS will be watching this group that calls itself "COMMON
GOOD" to see if they are proactive in lobbying Washington for meaningful
change. Apparently they have no specific plan to offer and expect the Congress
to come up with solutions, which will certainly become bogged down by partisan
politics. Indeed if they invite CMS to work with them we will know just how pure
their motives are. We do have solutions on our website.
One of the most
enlightened nations on the issues of medical malpractice is Germany. Their Civil
Court awards money to the victims and the Criminal Court doles out justice for
medical crimes. In Germany, the provider is often considered guilty until proven
innocent. In America, it is reversed with almost no malpractice called
"criminal" even when, as in New York City’s famous "Doctor
Zorro" case the surgeon carved his initials into a lady’s belly. If a
German doctor so much as doesn’t provide an Informed Consent it is a criminal
act. In America, our doctors ignore Informed Consent, forge them, or have a
patient sign while under sedation before surgery. And no one cares, certainly
not our Courts. There is a very strong distinction in Germany regarding the
criminal and civil aspects of medical malpractice. It is interesting to note
that in Germany a civil procedure can be started by the injured party as well as
a criminal procedure. We describe in our website how the District Attorney’s
office and Attorney General are unresponsive to complaints of criminality in
healthcare in the United States. That must change. In Germany all cases of
medical malpractice are initially considered civil and criminal. A case is
criminal if German medical law has been broken, such as failure to provide
Informed Consent, or the physician has recklessly endangered the patient. In
America we find there is no awareness that many acts of malpractice are
essentially "criminal." This is the case because the American Court
System has refused to take on their natural role as protectors of the Public.
That is, they have refused to employ the power of the criminal law in
safeguarding patients. The Germans have learned their lessons well since World
War II when doctors in Nazi Germany set up the death camps and perpetuated some
of the most horrific crimes of the Twentieth Century. They know what doctors are
capable of, therefore, their society keeps a strong check on the medical
establishment. In Germany, being a doctor is a high-risk profession, as it
should be, because they have the responsibility of life and death.
Our healthcare
system along with our Government, Church, and Courts, the very icons of morality
in our civilization are collapsing and eroding and no bells and whistles have
gone off. We see healthcare as a reflection of our culture falling into a moral
black hole. Where are the great thinkers of our time showing their angst? This
national denial of wrongdoing is rampant in so many areas of American life. The
above mentioned should represent and maintain the highest values and set the
standards for America. On a daily basis we see our human and civil rights being
taken away from us by our very protectors, the Supreme Court.
But we
philosophically digress and should return to the issues at hand. Those
distinguished doctors reveal in the New York Times ad that they are not
"bad people" but that some of them are doing "bad things"
that impacts our society. And that is exactly when it crosses the line and
becomes a crime, and not a doctor, "error." That it affects our
society is the very reason why our current medical malpractice system must
change drastically. The well being of all Americans has been compromised. An
unethical act leads to reckless endangerment. The terminology draws very fine
lines in their meaning in the legal system. We must establish new protocols in
American medicine and chain of command that mandates and demands accountability.
To get rid of "medical errors" means that we will be well on the way
to controlling medical malpractice litigations through a fundamental change in
the malpractice legal system. It will be a long road to regaining trust in our
doctors. For if you cannot trust your doctor, who can you trust? Our unregulated
healthcare system must end.
In the TASK FORCE
we have requested we are hopeful that the discussion would wend its way to our
Constitution and Bill of Rights. For in those centuries old documents, in the
foundation of our nation lie the very pertinent issues of "Due
Process." None of which is in evidence in cases of medical malpractice. Our
Founding Fathers would have a great deal to say about these issues. And so we
can hardly restrain ourselves into going into some of these delicious bits of
history.
The Constitutional
guarantee of "Due Process of Law" appears twice in the United States
Constitution. In the Fifth Amendment of the "Bill of Rights" that
prohibits the Federal Government of depriving any person of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law, and in the fourteenth amendment, adopted
almost 100 years later following the Civil War, which extends the same
prohibition to the states: "No state shall deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property without due process of law." Fair procedures are at
the heart of due process today (the essential guarantee of the due process
clause is that of fairness).
Can the Law make a
man a Judge in his own case? James Madison in his Federalist #10 declared,
"No man is allowed to be a Judge in his own case, because his interests
would certainly bias his judgments, and not improbably corrupt his
integrity." And yet, in Medicine and the Priesthood, men have been their
own Judges for centuries. The creation of England’s Magna Carta led to America
Law. But in the beginning, English Law allowed the gentry, the barons, to
protect their lands and property and to dole out the sentences as well. And in
the Priesthood, recent scandals about rampant sexual offenses in which the
Church protected its own, as Medicine does, is continuing those age old
practices. And doing everything possible to keep it out of the Courts and
avoiding due process for the victims.
Fast-forward to
today one of the great usurpers of "due process" is the AMA and they
way they have set up a third party is of magnificent proportions. This front
operation for the AMA is the National Patient Safety Foundation, which makes
every effort nationally to calm the waters and prevent meaningful change that
would address rampant and unbridled, "doctor errors." They have
systematically co-opted the victims by promoting psychotherapy and support
groups for the victims. This technique is meant to suppress the anger and rage
the victims feel, thereby diverting them from pressing for the overhaul of
medicine that must come and from litigating their cases. The words,
"accountability, regulation, and oversight" are never mentioned by the
AMA/NPSF. They are most guilty of preventing the type of comprehensive and
meaningful changes needed to insure safety in healthcare. Throughout the
country, their reach has been far and insidious. Hence the lack of a mass
movement to bring about the overhaul of healthcare. Today’s fiefdoms still
consist of the baron/doctors and the ever growing and powerful hospitals they
work in. They can exert tremendous influence and power on the Courts and State
Health Offices. Their shell game is to run seminars in which top doctors,
healthcare experts from academia all talk about "doctor errors" and
how to deal with those "errors" in a vacuum. That maintains the much
desired status quo. They systematically and deliberately avoid the "dirty
word" regulation. A National Single Payer Healthcare Plan would set the
stage for the development of a meaningful and uniform National Medical
Regulatory System.
The AMA/NPSF is
now in direct conflict with COMMON GOOD. The AMA trivializes the acts of doctors
when they refer to them as "errors." All accidents? Hardly. And when
they refer to us as "consumers" they attempt to relieve themselves of
their fiduciary relationship with their patients. COMMON GOOD claims they want
to change the medical malpractice system. The AMA/NPSF avoids the concept that
there must be fundamental structural change in our healthcare system. It will be
interesting to see these two groups "duke it out."
We must bring back
old time medicine. Doctors having a bond and relationship with their patients
who then express their appreciation with their doctor by staying for 30 years.
This will once again happen when we remove greed from our healthcare system and
go National. ITS TIME HAS COME.
Click the link
below to see our proposal to the United States House Committee on Healthcare,
which follows.
CMS furthermore believes
that our plan for Finance Reform, Regulatory Reform, and Malpractice Law Reform
sets the direction for change of the healthcare system that OUR COMMON GOOD
should embrace.
To Be Continued: