Submitted by David Edelson, MD, Mar 4, 2008 18:55

You article seems to indicate that doctors are upset over a 14% rise in malpractice rates. That is only the tip of the iceberg, and blatantly misrepresents the issues at hand. The uproar is over a proposal by the NY State Superintendent of Insurance, Eric Dinallo, to invoke an across the board $50,000 surcharge on every physician practicing in NY State, regardless of malpractice history. He also is proposing the possibility of 25% per year malpractice premium increases for the next 4 to 5 years.

And why may you ask do the insurance carriers need such a drastic rate increase? They will tell you it is due to rising payouts on malpractice claims. But that is only half the story. Our insurance premiums are invested by these huge companies where they normally make a large portion of their profits. However, with the market melting down, their profits are being eaten up. And who do you think they take their losses out on? You guessed it, family doctors like me!

I've seen my malpractice premiums almost double in the past 5 years. Meanwhile, my income and HMO payments as a primary care physician have done nothing but go down over that same period. And at the same time, my overhead is skyrocketing, mostly to pay for staff to deal with the daily barrage of managed care paperwork we need to navigate to provide even the simplest care to our patients. The media continues to portray doctors as a greedy and self protective lot who panic at any attempt to cut their income. Your article plays right into this fallacy, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. The truth is that we've put up with year after year of continual erosions in our ability to care for our patients, our autonomy, our income and our self respect. But since these changes have occurred gradually, we as a group have been willing to compromise. Now, the insurance carriers are out of control with greed, having made record profits by cutting patient benefits while squeezing physicians on a daily basis, with no end in sight. Nobody seems to care that the CEO of United HealthCare William McGuire made $54 million in salary and $1.6 billion in stock options, while I'm struggling to pay my mortgage every month!

I for one am fed up. It's time to fight back and protect our rights and the rights of the patients we care for. Albany needs to put a leash on the insurance industry that currently has a leash of corporate donations around their neck. Otherwise, the fate of quality healthcare in this state is on the line.

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