The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that doctors can be held liable for negligence that reduces a patient's chance of survival, even if the patient's prospect for recovery was already less than 50%. Medical malpractice lawyers said the decision could help patients who previously had little chance of collecting damages from physicians. The ruling came in a case in which a jury had awarded a $1 million judgment to the family of a man whose stomach cancer was overlooked by a doctor. The court recognized for the first time a doctrine known as "loss of chance," which allows a patient whose odds of recovery are 50% or less to receive damages for any negligence that reduced those odds.
A coalition of business and insurance groups is lobbying lawmakers against Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s plan to collect millions of dollars from them to help close a $130 million funding gap this year for the state’s health insurance law. The coalition is pushing an alternative that would require all Massachusetts Medicaid patients to join managed care plans. The coalition says mandatory managed care would save the state $160 million this fiscal year and between $690 million and $1 billion by 2013. The Patrick administration disputes the contention that the managed care proposal would save money.
Zimmer Holdings says it will suspend sales of the Durom cup, an artificial hip component, that some doctors have complained was failing at a high rate. In recent months, some doctors have complained that the device was failing in their patients, who then had to undergo replacement surgery. Zimmer said its investigation had determined that the product was not defective, but added that even some experienced surgeons had found it difficult to implant. The company said it expected to resume sales once specialized training for doctors had begun.
Procure Treatment Centers Inc., a private company that wants to build a proton therapy cancer treatment center in Warrenville, IL, has sued Northern Illinois University for its efforts to build a similar facility in nearby West Chicago. Procure Treatment Centers Inc. accuses NIU of abusing the state's regulatory system to stifle competition in the healthcare market, according to the lawsuit. The company, which has partnered with Central DuPage Hospital on the proton therapy facility project, accuses NIU of violating the Illinois Antitrust Act and wants to know who helped NIU in its appearances before the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, the state agency that regulates healthcare construction.
Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama has vowed that he will lower the country's healthcare costs enough to "bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family." Obama has also promised that his health plan will be in place "by the end of my first term as president of the United States." But whether he can deliver is a matter of dispute among health analysts and economists.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law a ban against health insurance companies rewarding employees with bonuses for canceling or limiting a patient's coverage. The law is part of efforts to curtail the practice that the industry has defended as a little-used guard against fraud that helps control costs. Critics contend that insurers use confusing applications for individual policies to trap people into making mistakes that can later be used against them. When a policyholder gets sick, insurers scour old medical records looking for an undisclosed condition or symptom to use to justify cancellation, the critics say.