I-LAW and docs say Kilbride’s vote jeopardizes healthcare access for all Peorians
and likely will become an issue for him in his retention race this fall
In the wake of a recent ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court to overturn the landmark 2005 bipartisan medical malpractice reform law, Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch (I-LAW), a grassroots legal watchdog group, joined Peoria-area doctors at a news conference in Peoria to discuss how local Supreme Court Justice Thomas Kilbride’s decisive vote in that case has put the healthcare of all Peorians in jeopardy.
“Justice Kilbride and three of his fellow justices have given a huge gift to the personal injury lawyers,” said Travis Akin, Executive Director of I-LAW. “By acting as a legislator and siding with the personal injury lawyers, Justice Kilbride is jeopardizing the healthcare of millions of Illinoisans.”
In a 4-2 decision earlier this year in the Abigaile Lebron v. Gottlieb Memorial Hospital case, the Illinois Supreme Court struck down the state’s medical malpractice reform law, ruling that the caps provisions in the law violated the Illinois Constitution. Voting to strike down the law were Justices Thomas Kilbride, Charles Freeman, Thomas Fitzgerald and Anne Burke.
The comprehensive medical malpractice reform law was approved by a supermajority of the Illinois General Assembly in 2005. It included medical, insurance and legal reforms. While there were no limits on economic damages, the law capped damages for pain and suffering to $500,000 for doctors and $1 million for hospitals.
By all accounts the law was working. For the third consecutive year, ISMIE Mutual Insurance Co., the state’s largest insurer of physicians, announced earlier this year that their base premium rates would not be going up. Additionally, Milliman Inc., a Seattle-based consulting and actuarial firm, is projecting medical malpractice insurers to see an 18 percent jump in costs. The firm also suggests there will be an increase in the number of medical malpractice lawsuits filed and an increase in the cost of these lawsuits.
“This decision erased all of the hard work the Peoria Medical Society and I-LAW and so many other groups did to pass the historic medical malpractice reform law,” said Dr. Steven J. Lichtenstein, M.D., President of the Peoria Medical Society. “This was a common sense law that was working, and by stepping in to overturn it, Justice Kilbride has reopened the floodgates, causing Illinoisans to worry if their doctors will be there when they need them.”
