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Grassroots advocacy: Doctors keep up the fight for tort reform

Physicians in Illinois and other states lobby for change. Meanwhile, new medical liability reform legislation is expected in the U.S. Senate.

By Tanya Albert, amednews staff. April 12, 2004.

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Chicago physicians turned drivers' heads and stopped lunchtime office workers in their tracks March 26 when they took to city streets to rally for an end to the medical liability insurance crisis.

Chanting "tort reform now" and carrying signs with such lines as: "Who is going to deliver your next baby?" and "Sen. Durbin: Prevent the Illinois MD exodus," about 200 physicians were escorted by police down city sidewalks.

Doctors marched about a mile and a half to the Dirksen Federal Building, where they dropped off petitions asking Sen. Dick Durbin (D, Ill.) to help move tort reform through the U.S. Senate. He has opposed previous bills. Marchers then took their rally several blocks north to the James R. Thompson Center, where Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich keeps an office, to urge him to support tort reform in Illinois.

"I'm fighting for my job right now," said Chicago internist Michael G. Grassi, MD. His rates, without any lawsuits, jumped to $52,000 this year, up from $14,500 in 2003. "We need a rollback, and the governor has the power to do this."

The Chicago rally is one of dozens that have taken place across the country this year. Physicians have joined forces to push lawmakers to enact reforms they believe will help stabilize -- or even reduce -- medical liability insurance rates. Rising prices continue to force physicians to give up their practices, retire early or move to states where rates are still economically feasible.

"Our system is absolutely broken," American Medical Association Secretary-Treasurer Herman I. Abromowitz, MD, told the physicians gathered for the march. "Only six states are safe from tort issues."