Healthcare reform: Case Study #1

Mitchell Wiener was the first person in New York City to succumb to the H1N1 virus, popularly called the "Swine Flue". Mr. Wiener was a principal for I.S. 238.

His family has now filed a lawsuit against New York City and associated Health and Education departments. The complaint stipulates that the defendants directly caused Mr. Wiener's death by failing to close the school when H1N1 was first detected in New York City.

The amount? $40 million dollars.

Now I will leave it to the New York City justice system to determine whether or not NYC and it's departments are guilty of this accusation. But $40 MILLION dollars? With all due respect to the family of Mr. Wiener, can we really say that for the duration of the remainder of his expected life-span that he would have produced $40 million dollars in income? These exorbitant settlements contribute significantly to the cost of health care in the United States because doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, and pharmaceutical companies must purchase high cost malpractice and errors and omissions insurance to protect themselves against these kinds of lawsuits.

Why is it in all of the health care debate that class-action lawsuits, tort reform and frivolous lawsuit reform is not even mentioned, much less debated and discussed? There are some that say that as much as 1 in every 6 dollars spent on health care in the U.S. goes to some form of insurance or legal defense. Considering that Americans pay more money on health care than any other single category of expense, that is a LOT of money.

I will not even consider supporting health care reform that does not include tort reform or place some kind of limit (based on a formula) on the amount of compensation that can be sought in a lawsuit.