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Bus loads of Sun City Center residents will attend a Tampa meeting to call for medical malpractice reform.
By JAY CRIDLIN
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 31, 2003
SUN CITY CENTER -- Medical malpractice insurance costs are on the rise. And in Sun City Center, the people fighting the increase aren't just the ones paying the premiums.
Doctors at South Bay Hospital are recruiting their Sun City Center neighbors as foot soldiers in their battle against skyrocketing liability insurance costs.
Hundreds of residents are expected to travel en masse to today's Hillsborough County legislative delegation meeting in Tampa to call for a reform of the way medical liability cases are handled.
Historically a politically savvy community -- in some elections, residents have produced close to 90 percent turnout -- Sun City Center will be a key factor if South Bay doctors are to further their cause.
"I think the people in Sun City are more in tune to this because they have a hospital that's located right in their community," said Dr. Jim Davison, the hospital's medical director of emergency services and an emergency room physician. "There's an overwhelming amount of support down here, and I think it's going to wind up turning into a tidal wave washing up in Tallahassee."
Medical liability insurance costs have risen steadily for several years, and the issue is as hotly contested now as it has ever been. Two weeks ago, President Bush repeated his call for a $250,000 cap on malpractice awards. A panel recently made the same recommendation to Gov. Jeb Bush. In the past decade, the House has approved legislation on malpractice limits several times, only to see the Senate overturn it.
Doctors blame a legal system that encourages high payouts for malpractice victims, and lawyers blame insurance carriers who have mismanaged their claims.
"We believe that what happened 10 years ago was that the market was flooded with a number of carriers who wanted to come in and wanted to get a piece of the malpractice insurance," said Betsey Herd, a member of the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers. "They had a price war, so they underpriced the insurance at that time."
Now, she said, prices have risen as carriers have left the state, thinning out the competition.
The medical malpractice issue is not unique to Florida. Doctors in West Virginia and Pennsylvania have staged hospital walkouts or threatened to do so over malpractice insurance costs. Last year in Las Vegas, several dozen specialists at one hospital threatened to leave unless some form of tort reform was enacted.
But doctors say the problem is as bad, if not worse, in Florida. Dr. Eli Lerner of South Bay said that in 1980, Florida insurers paid out $19 million in 264 malpractice claims. In 2000, those figures rose to 883 claims and $220 million -- an average of $250,000 per claim.
The costs have driven a number of doctors -- especially specialists and young doctors -- out of the state. In the last two years, four of South Bay's approximately 170 doctors have either left the hospital or stopped practicing altogether due to a lack of insurance. Several more, Davison said, are still practicing without insurance, leaving doctors who are sued to pay out-of-pocket.
South Bay doctors say the pressure on their profession is increasing, making their grass-roots efforts in Sun City Center all the more important.
"Without the support of the patients, I don't think anything would happen," said Lerner, a surgeon. "I think you'd see a slow atrophy of health care in the state of Florida to almost a zero level."
Just as South Bay's doctors are focusing their rallying efforts on the people most affected by what they do -- their patients -- trial lawyers have been taking their most vocal supporters, malpractice victims, to meet with lawmakers during this legislative cycle.
Herd, an attorney for Wagner, Vaughan & McLaughlin in Tampa, said trial lawyers face an uphill battle in the war for public support.
"It's that old saying: Nobody likes a lawyer until you need one," she said. "The few that are bad out there ruin it for all of us. I do think, unfairly, the trial lawyers are being cast as the bad guys in this whole scenario."
Like most hospitals, South Bay Hospital itself has been largely silent in this debate among doctors, lawmakers and insurers.
"It's really not about the hospital," said South Bay spokesman Charles Darcy. "For us, the hospital's just bricks and mortar. We provide the place to care for people."
That service is a high priority for Sun City Center residents, whose average age is 72. Nearby specialists and emergency room doctors are a necessity, and for Sun City Center residents, this is reason enough to get involved.
"We are supporting the docs, but on the other hand, it's a patient problem," said Dallas Tuthill, a retired internist. "Patients should put it that way."
Workers at a Jan. 21 rally in support of the doctors handed out lists of telephone numbers and e-mail and postal addresses for state health and government officials, encouraging the residents to send letters of protest.
Janet Wilson, who helped organize today's bus ride and the Jan. 21 rally, said Sun City Center residents are proud of their ability to influence lawmakers.
"If they know there's a large voting block out there, especially on an issue that's not Republican or Democrat or independent, you have an influence," she said. "That's what our country is all about. And if you don't use what our country is all about, you're slacking in your job."
In the past, Sun City Center residents have proved their bargaining power by speaking out as a group on everything from proposed time shares to legalizing golf cart use on their roads.
Currently, Wilson and others from Sun City Center are leading a charge to have Hillsborough County adopt a zoning overlay that would place age restrictions on retirement communities. County officials are working with Sun City Center to draft the overlay.
The Jan. 21 event was the second large-scale doctors' rally staged there this month, and a third is set for Feb. 12.
Lerner, Davison and Herd plan to speak at today's legislative delegation meeting.
WCI Communities Inc., the developer in charge of Sun City Center, has agreed to foot the bill for three buses, or more if needed. The buses will leave at noon from the community hall parking lot.
Davison said he hopes to see 150 to 200 Sun City Center residents in the audience for support.
"I think it's important for them to see it's not just the doctors and the lawyers in this issue, it's constituents," he said. "I think that'll have a profound effect on many of them."
WHAT: Hillsborough County legislative delegation meeting.
WHEN: Meeting begins at 9 a.m., but the medical malpractice issue is not expected to come up until after noon.
WHERE: University Area Community Civic Center, 10413 N 22nd St., between Fletcher and Bearss avenues.