Remember ‘tort reforms’ with voting

Today, physicians pay up to hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly for malpractice insurance. A few states have enacted 'tort reforms,” which require every claim of malpractice be investigated by a panel of lawyers and physicians before it goes to court. If the panel does not approve it for trial and it is taken to court and lost, the plaintiff pays the defendant's legal expenses.

Recently, Rep. Bruce Braley was filmed telling a group of trial lawyers that they should financially support him and all Democrat candidates for the Senate because if the Republicans win the Senate, a nonlawyer will become chairman of the Judicial Committee and might allow 'tort reform ' to be debated in the Judicial Committee, voted on and even sent to the Senate for passage, thereby closing a financial windfall for trial lawyers.

Braley claimed also that he has fought 'tort reform” for 30 years and will continue to do so indefinitely.

When voting to replace retiring Sen. Tom Harkin, remember that 5 percent to 20 percent of a physician's charges pay for malpractice insurance for protection from financial ruin should he or she overlook something or make a mistake while treating countless others successfully.

J. Fred Doornbos

Iowa City