Be Careful What You Wish For
Tampa Tribune
December 14, 2002

By Bill Newton and Rebecca Hoffman, executive director of Florida Consumer Action Network and organizing director of Americans for Insurance Reform, respectively.

The story of Frank Cornelius is like that of many thousands of patients who are killed or injured each year as a result of medical negligence. In the early 1990s, after several shattering incidents of malpractice, Frank was catastrophically and permanently disabled, confined to a wheelchair and unable to even breathe without a respirator. His daily life became consumed with constant pain. His medical expenses and lost wages amounted to more than $5 million.

While similar to the cases of many who suffer as a result of negligence by hospitals, doctors and other health-care professionals, Frank's case was different in one utterly tragic respect. As a lobbyist for Indiana's insurance industry, Frank had helped obtain passage of the very law that now prevented his obtaining anything close to adequate compensation for his ruined life, limiting damages to one-tenth of his costs and barring him from receiving any compensation at all for his pain and suffering.

Of his role securing passage of that law, Frank later wrote, "I rue that accomplishment." Before his tragic death in 1996, Frank worked to make sure that no other legislative body repeated Indiana's mistake.

. . .

Fortunately, a new grass-roots coalition, Americans for Insurance Reform, is continuing Frank Cornelius' truth-seeking work. AIR, made up of 100 consumer groups representing more than 50 million people, is fighting back against the insurance companies in order to protect the public interest.

For a copy of the complete article, contact AIR.