Lawyers Head North for ATLA Event; SickofLawsuits.org Says to be Wary

This week, personal injury lawyers are in Toronto for the American Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA) conference where one organization, Sick of Lawsuits, reports they will plot even more attacks on the healthcare system.

A look at ATLA’s group meeting agenda reportedly reveals that more than 50 percent of the meetings target the healthcare system.

According to reported numbers:

* $845: Yearly cost of the tort system each American must pay (U.S. Tort Costs: 2004 Update, Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, January 2005)

* $40 billion: amount of money trial lawyers earned from lawsuit awards in 2002 (Trial Lawyers Inc.; A Report On the Lawsuit Industry in America, The Center for Legal Policy, Manhattan Institute, 2003)

* $70 – 126 billion: amount of healthcare costs per year that would be
saved by limiting unreasonable jury awards (Going without Health
Insurance, Families USA, March 10, 2003; “Number of Uninsured Americans on the Rise,” Associated Press, March 5, 2003; “Avoiding Health Insurance Crowd-Out,” Journal of Health Economics, March 2000)

* 79: Percentage of doctors who report that due to litigation fears, they
have ordered more tests than they would based only on professional
judgment of what is medically needed (Fear of Litigation Study: Impact
on Medicine, Harris Interactive, April 11, 2002)

Sick of Lawsuits is a nonpartisan, grassroots campaign of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse.