Tort Reform: Does Gov. Barbour really want to bring this up again?

Some of you may be aware of Gov. Barbour's latest attempt to scare the populous into thinking trial lawyers are baby-eating devils. If not, here's a synopsis: The Mississippi Supreme Court recently held that pre-suit notice is required under the Tort Claims Act, but that the time period for that notice is tolled by the filing of suit. The suit will be dismissed of course for failure to give notice, but you can still go back and give that pre-suit notice.

Now, having practiced in the civil arena before, I can assure you that pre-suit notice, in reality, does nothing more to help settle a case than the filing of a complaint does. It's just a trap to ensnare unwary citizens and keep them from getting justice when they are harmed by a state actor. Period.

But if Gov. Barbour wants to bring up tort reform, I say go ahead. Now that some time has passed since the passage of tort reform legislation, let's look back at some numbers provided by none other than the American Medical Association itself.

Here are the number of physicians in Mississippi by year from 1998 through 2007:

1998 - 5,133
1999 - 5,232
2000 - 5,399
2001 - 5,544
2002 - 5,680
2003 - 5,820
***TORT REFORM ENACTED***
2004 - 5,872
2005 - 5,872
2006 - 5,890
2007 - 5,961

Anyone notice anything odd? For all the hue and cry from tort reform proponents about doctors leaving Mississippi and the health care crisis that would ensue, we had growth in the number of physicians in Mississippi during the 6 years leading up to tort reform, and in fact, we have had less growth since tort reform.

And anecdotal evidence suggests that insurance rates for physicians haven't declined as promised, either. Oh, and the number of entities writing med mal policies hasn't gone up, either.