Preferential Treatment (eBook)

CHAPTER 3

Fabian, still groggy and head throbbing, sat at a table in the rear of the hotel restaurant. A few brave early-risers sat at the counter, sipped coffee, and smoked cigarettes as they pored over their morning newspapers. He stretched his muscular arms over his pounding head and yawned. Surveying the restaurant, he spied an abandoned newspaper left in a disheveled heap on the next table. He struggled to his feet and clumsily snatched the paper from the table revealing a plate of half-eaten biscuits and slimy sausage gravy. The sight instantly nauseated him.

Fabian slithered back to his booth with his booty. He unfolded his pilfered Times-Picayune and scanned the headlines. It was going to be a challenge to focus on the smaller newsprint. At fifty-three, he had reached and passed the age at which he knew he needed reading glasses but was too vain to buy them.

Fabian squinted at the front page, straining to focus his bloodshot eyes. With considerable effort, he spied an all too familiar headline: “Liability Crisis Driving Doctors Out of State.” It was the third time this week, in three different cities and states, that he had seen similar news stories. He held the newspaper at arm’s length, and the print came into focus. He strained to read the accompanying story as angry heat stung the back of his thick neck.

Same B.S., different venue. A goddamned nationwide epidemic, this medical liability crisis. Fabian felt his ire rise as he perused the article.

HARRISBURG, PA. – Hundreds of white-smocked physicians from around the state poured into the capital yesterday to protest skyrocketing medical malpractice premiums and unfair laws which, they claim, threaten their practices and their ability to adequately provide reasonably priced medical care to citizens of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Jonathan LaPierre, president of the Pennsylvania State Medical Association and spokesman for the loud and vociferous group of doctors, held a scheduled press conference on the steps of the capitol building.

Said LaPierre, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore!” as throngs of cheering physicians, nurses, hospital administrators, and their supporters looked on. According to LaPierre, the group had rallied together to demonstrate their support for recently passed legislation in the House of Representatives of the Pennsylvania General Assembly which, in the words of LaPierre, will “stop greedy plaintiff lawyers from filing frivolous lawsuits against talented and caring physicians and allow us to go back to the business of practicing medicine without fear of reprisal every time we treat a patient.”

According to legislative experts, in order for such legislation to become law in the state, a constitutional amendment would be required. The bill currently awaits consideration by the state Senate; however, for the amendment to become law, it must pass both houses of the General Assembly in two consecutive sessions. The earliest date for relief for the physicians is 2007, according to LaPierre.

“Because of skyrocketing medical malpractice insurance premiums,” said LaPierre, “doctors are being forced to consider either leaving Pennsylvania to practice in a more litigation-friendly environment or to consider leaving the practice of medicine altogether. The litigation climate in this state is terrible,” said . . .

“Coffee, honey?” a waitress interrupted, waving the pot from side to side in front of Fabian. He lowered his newspaper and attempted to bring the waitress into focus.

“Yeah,” slurred a grateful Fabian. He folded the paper and threw it on the seat next to him. He had read all that he could stomach. “I’ll take a menu, too,” he said. Fabian desperately needed some serious grease to soak up the residual alcohol.

The waitress sloshed steaming coffee into Fabian’s cup, turned, and walked toward the kitchen.

“I thought I’d lost you,” a raspy voice squawked, startling Fabian. He jerked to his left and spied his disheveled associate standing over him.

“Jesus. You look worse than I feel,” said Fabian. “Want some coffee?”

“Thanks. You look pretty good yourself. What time did we get to bed last night?” asked Fuscardo.

“Make that this morning. I don’t have a clue, but somebody had set the goddamn alarm for 5:00 a.m. Did you hear it?”

“Yeah. Tried to ignore it but—well, here I am.”

Fabian waved at the waitress, pointed to Fuscardo, and pantomimed drinking a cup of coffee. The waitress gave Fabian a knowing nod, and followed his silent command.

Fabian picked up the newspaper that lay beside him and tossed it in Fuscardo’s direction.

“Look at this garbage. Everywhere I go, it’s the same crap—doctors whining about lawsuits. The cry-babies don’t want reform; they want immunity.”

Fuscardo perused the article. His brow furrowed as he looked up from the paper. “Sounds like what went on in West Virginia. The doctors didn’t get immunity, but the law that passed was so awful for patients, the legislature might as well have given it to them.”

Fabian grimaced. He felt awful to begin with, and now his day which began as merely rotten had become worse. The article served as a stubborn reminder of the new medical malpractice tort reform law in West Virginia, one which would put a substantial dent in his lucrative practice of suing doctors.

“The goddamned doctors,” Fabian began, “wail about this ‘crisis’ and how they are going broke because of the high cost of their liability insurance. If they’re all going broke, who’s paying for their big houses, their Mercedes, and their wives’ Beemers?” Fabian raised his voice several decibels. “And who’s putting their little brats through those expensive private schools?”

Fabian snatched the folded newspaper from the table and waved it in the air.

“Where are these tens of thousands of Pennsylvania doctors going to go to practice when they leave the state—the friggin’ moon? What are they going to do when they quit practicing—sell goddamn real estate or life insurance? I know you haven’t been practicing law that long, Santino, but you’ve lived in West Virginia all your life. Do you recall one doctor that ever left the state or gave up his practice because he was sued?”

“No.” said Fuscardo. “The only ones I know that hung it up early were ones that made so much money they could retire before their hair turned gray. Yeah, some of them moved, too, but it wasn’t to go somewhere else and practice medicine. They moved because they could, not because they had to escape some so-called hostile legal climate. The only climate they were escaping was our rotten West Virginia winters.”

“That’s been my experience, too, and I’ve known a lot of doctors and sued a bunch of them in my time.” Fabian gave Fuscardo a wistful smile, then looked back at the newspaper article and scowled. “I have been listening to the docs’ whining since the 80’s. They’d plead their case to anyone who would listen. The mantra has been the same, year after year—greedy plaintiffs’ lawyers filing thousands of frivolous law suits and winning millions of dollars from runaway juries who couldn’t possibly understand the complexities of med mal cases. Imagine that—the same juries that had been rendering verdicts in complex civil trials for years and the same juries that decided whether people should live or die, suddenly dumbed down when it came to med mal cases. The doctors say jurors are too stupid to understand what doctors do and why they do it. Arrogance at the highest level.”

Fabian took a long drink of his now tepid coffee. “For years no one would listen to their poor-mouthing. But then they started to get their agenda together and their propaganda machine cranked up. They got people to start believing that money-hungry lawyers, their greedy clients, and runaway, ignorant juries were the cause of everything bad—from the high cost of liability insurance to the high cost of medicine. Christ, they’d pin climate change on us if they could. They duped people into believing that we were driving their entire profession out of business or to other states to practice. They petrified people into thinking that if doctors didn’t get preferential 1treatment in the legal arena, soon there would be no doctors to treat patients when they got sick. It was the politics of fear.

“But it wasn’t always like that. Early on, the doctors couldn’t get organized or couldn’t figure out how. We trial lawyers, on the other hand, had been at the lobbying and political game for a long time. For as long as I can remember most of the members of the legislature were lawyers. Running for office was the only way we could legally advertise, at least until the U.S. Supreme Court opened the floodgates for lawyer advertising. Either we had our own guys and gals in the House and Senate protecting our interests or we donated heavily to candidates that we knew would never pass anti-patient legislation. It wasn’t by chance that for years tort reform never saw the light of day, especially when the offices...