AAJ President Responds to Bill Bradley's Comments on Malpractice Reform

Anthony Tarricone, president of the American Association for Justice (AAJ), wrote the following letter to editor of the New York Times:

The “grand bipartisan compromise” proposed by former Senator Bill Bradley would force Americans to trade one right for another: gain health insurance, but lose legal options if injured by another’s negligence through no fault of their own.

The Government Accountability Office and Congressional Budget Office have both studied medical negligence and determined that limiting the legal rights of patients would save the health care system little money.

Mr. Bradley’s “medical courts” concept would not only make it more difficult for injured patients to hold wrongdoers accountable, but also create an entirely new bureaucracy with costs far exceeding the system we now have to address medical negligence.

If we really want to lower health care costs, let’s find ways to lower the estimated 98,000 annual deaths that are caused by medical errors. Eliminating malpractice would lead to fewer cases being filed, and better yet, patients would be safer and have better outcomes.

This is the sort of grand compromise no one could disagree with.