From: wdstarr@athena.mit.edu (William December Starr)
Subject: How Florida handled a medical malpractice crisis...
Organization: Northeastern Law, Class of '93
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 22:56:41 GMT


I ran into the following article on Monday the 5th, opening day of the
Supreme Court's 1992-3 session.  Thought I'd post it (with permission)
to misc.legal and talk.politics.mics and see what people thought.  My
own opinion is that Florida's legislature was faced with a very real
public health problem, but solved it in a slipshod and very dubious
manner.  It would have been nice if the Supremes had taken this one...

  -=-=-=-  cut here  -=-=-=-  cut here  -=-=-=-  cut here  -=-=-=-

The following is copyright 1992 by UPI.  Reposted with permission from
the ClariNet Electronic Newspaper newsgroup clari.news.law.supreme.
For more info on ClariNet, write to info@clarinet.com or phone
1-800-USE-NETS.

From:       clarinews@clarinet.com (GREG HENDERSON)
Subject:    Court lets stand Florida's progressive medical malpractice law
            health care
Article:    <court-malpracticeU2O51110ae@clarinet.com>
Date:       Mon, 5 Oct 92 8:15:28 PDT

   WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The Supreme Court Monday let stand a 1988
Florida law credited with helping end a health care crisis that
threatened to force some women to give childbirth without medical
help.

   The court declined to review the state's new $250-per-year tax on
doctors not involved in childbirth, which is used to help fund
affordable malpractice insurance for obstetricians.

   Some doctors claimed the tax violates their 14th Amendment
guarantee of equal protection under the law.

   The law was upheld in February by a 4-3 vote of the Florida Supreme
Court, despite a dissent that likened it to "taxing only
schoolteachers to pay for new educational facilities, or taxing only
licensed psychologists to pay for public mental-health care."

   The high court's decision to let that ruling stand could give other
states confidence to take similar steps to deal with medical
malpractice insurance rates, which in some areas have become so
expensive as to drive doctors out of their profession.

   The Florida taxing scheme was enacted at a special session of the
state legislature called to deal with a health care emergency. It
stemmed from a rise in medical malpractice insurance rates so dramatic
that some doctors refused to practice, while others threatened to cut
off care for indigent or high-risk patients.

   Doctors involved in childbirth were among the hardest hit by the
malpractice insurance premiums.

   In 1972, the average obstetrician or gynecologist in the state
spent about 4.2 percent of his or her annual gross revenues to cover
malpractice insurance premiums. By 1987, that figure had risen to more
than 23 percent.

   Part of the Florida Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation
Plan includes immunity from malpractice for participating
obstetricians involved in certain procedures.

   Any obstetrician in the state who wishes to buy the insurance is
charged $5,000 annually.

   Other licensed physicians in Florida -- who are not eligible to
take part in the health insurance plan -- are charged $250 per year.

   A state insurance agency also paid an initial $20 million into the
plan, and hospitals in Florida are taxed $50 for every infant
delivered.

   Suit was filed by a group of doctors who are not obstetricians,
claiming that they are being taxed illegally to pay for a program that
has no more impact on them than on any other Florida resident.

   The Florida Supreme Court, however, upheld the tax based on a
theory that all doctors in the state work as a "team," and the health
of one segment of the industry directly impacts all others.

   Dissenting factions on that court called the plan an illegal tax
based on nothing more than a person's "station in life or membership
in a particular group."

   The tax, the dissenters wrote, is "one step" from "the conclusion
that society can shift its more onerous tax burdens exclusively onto
those minorities or groups that lack a sufficient voice in the state
capitol."
 ------
 92-136 Dr. James T. McGibony, James F. Coy, M.D., et al., vs. Florida
Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Plan, et al.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc