Center for Justice and Democracy 90 Broad Street, Suite 401 New York, New York 10004 www.centerjd.org | centerjd@centerjd.org 212.267.2801

SECRETS AND LIES -- HOW INSURERS
TAKE FROM PATIENTS TO PAD THEIR POCKETS

The insurance industry has been enjoying record-breaking profits over the last two years.  But that’s not good enough – they want more.

They have already been price-gouging doctors with excessive premiums. So whom are they going after now?  Injured patients.  It’s a vicious cycle:

• Insurance industry gouges doctors despite rising profits and surpluses.1
• Insurance industry pretends that lawsuits by injured patients are at fault for those rising premiums (not true).2
• Insurance industry asks legislature to deny injured patients adequate compensation, so insurers can make even more money.
• Insurers keep doctors’ premiums high, pay out inadequate compensation to injured patients, and get even richer.3

WHO’S HURT BY THIS? Injured patients like nine-year-old Martin Harnett, who, due to medical malpractice, will spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, wearing diapers and unable to dress or care for himself; or Debi Surlas, a former nurse who was blinded by medical malpractice and now is totally dependent on others to live day to day.

WHO’S NOT HELPED? Doctors. Even the insurance industry admits it.4 

WHO BENEFITS? You guessed it.  The insurance industry.

 

Stop price-gouging doctors.  Stop blaming patients for an insurance problem they did not create.   Stop the secrets and lies.

 

 

 

 

1See, e.g., Insurance Services Office, Inc. & Property Casualty Insurers Assoc. of America, First Underwriting Profit Since 1978 and Investment Gains Propelled P/C Industry's Net Income and Surplus to Record Highs (April 12, 2005).

2See, e.g., Joseph B. Treaster and Joel Brinkley, “Behind Those Medical Malpractice Rates,” New York Times, Feb. 22, 2005.

3See, e.g., CJ&D, 2004 Was the Most Profitable Year Ever for the Insurance Industry, http://centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_InsProfits2004.htm.

4E.g.“[T]he insurance industry never promised that tort reform would achieve specific premium savings.” (American Insurance Association Press Release, March 13, 2002); “We wouldn’t tell you or anyone that the reason to pass tort reform would be to reduce insurance rates.” (Sherman Joyce, President, American Tort Reform Association, in Liability Week, July 19, 1999).