New Study Showing 250,000 Medicare Patients Killed by Preventable Medical Errors Shows Need for Congress to Get Priorities in Order
Congress Should Focus on Improving Patient Safety - Not Stripping Americans of Right to Hold Corporate Wrongdoers Accountable

(Washington, DC)-A new study released April 3rd showing medical errors on the rise and a quarter of a million Medicare patients killed by preventable medical errors is a rebuke to congressional efforts to protect insurance and drug company profits rather than patients at risk of death or permanent injury from medical negligence.

"This study clearly shows Congress should focus on decreasing the enormous death toll from medical errors rather than eliminating the rights of patients injured through no fault of their own to hold corporate wrongdoers accountable," said Ken Suggs, President of the American Association for Justice (AAJ).

Majority Leader Bill Frist is expected [don't think we can say, has promised] to bring to the floor this May a medical malpractice bill that would do nothing to reduce medical negligence but would drastically limit compensation for victims and strip them of their constitutional rights to hold negligent corporations accountable.

Suggs had previously made a personal and public offer to Senator Frist on behalf of AAJ to work together on patient safety reform that will help reduce negligent medical errors, as well as insurance reform to reduce malpractice insurance rates for doctors. Frist, whose family owns a chain of hospitals and insurance companies, never responded to the offer, and continues to push legislation that would financially benefit his family's company.

The study is the third annual HealthGrades Patient Safety in American Hospitals assessment. It found that among Medicare patients in hospitals:

• 1.24 million patient safety incidents, or medical errors, occurred between 2002 and 2004, up from 1.18 million in between 2001 and 2003.
  
• Over the same time period, 304,702 deaths were caused by medical errors, 250,246 of which were potentially preventable.
  
• The cost of those medical errors to Medicare and the taxpayers amounted to $9.3 billion.

HealthGrades previously estimated that over three years within the entire population, not just Medicare patients, there were 575,000 preventable deaths caused by medical errors.

"When health care corporations and bureaucratic regulators fail to protect the public, the civil justice system is the last resort for injured patients to hold wrongdoers accountable - for Congress to try to dismantle this safeguard and eliminate incentives to improve patient safety in order to reward their friends in the insurance and drug industries is unconscionable," Suggs said.

More Information on the Toll of Medical Errors:

• Medical errors cost Americans $500 billion a year in avoidable medical expenses - approximately 30% of all health care costs. [Forbes, "Fixing Hospitals," 6/20/05]
  
• The annual cost to employers per insured workers of medical errors is $2,000. [Forbes, "Fixing Hospitals," 6/20/05]
  
• One in three Americans (34%) say that they or a family member has experienced a medical error. [The Kaiser Family Foundation/Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality/Harvard School of Public Health, November 2004]
  
• 21% of all Americans say that a medical error has caused either themselves or a family member serious health consequences, including severe pain (16%), serious loss of time at work (16%), temporary disability (11%), and/or death (8%). [The Kaiser Family Foundation/Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality/Harvard School of Public Health, November 2004]

Updated April 10, 2006