File a frivolous lawsuit and call me in the morning

By Bobby E. Reynolds

The refusal of Kentucky's policymakers to resist unreasonable judgments and gold-digging plaintiffs threatens the state's economic health, limits patients' choices and causes doctors to practice defensive medicine at higher costs. At least for those physicians who continue to practice.

Around 70 of Kentucky's 120 counties are now without a practicing ob-gyn. News reports indicate that those who do continue to practice face average annual medical malpractice insurance premiums of around $65,000.

Refusing to limit non-economic damages and other risks faced by responsible physicians is a legal cancer eating away at the quality of care available especially to women across the commonwealth. Each time an ob-gyn moves out of the state or shuts down his or her practice, 140 Kentucky women are left without the valuable medical attention they need.

As of 2003, approximately 1,273 physicians had left Kentucky, many of whom like ob-gyns are specialists. The mass exodus is having a particularly damaging effect on residents of economically depressed eastern Kentucky, which already had an existing shortage of physicians.

Bills addressing the crisis were introduced in both the House and Senate died during the 2004 General Assembly. The status of these bills remains uncertain at the present time.

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