Thursday, Aug. 12, 2004 | 8:56 a.m.
A group of Las Vegas doctors on Wednesday blasted presidential candidate John Kerry, alleging he is "silent" on Clark County's physician shortage and charging that the Massachusetts Democrat would block medical liability reform that they say would attract more doctors to Nevada.
The event, orchestrated by the national Bush-Cheney re-election effort, came on the heels of the Kerry campaign's Southern Nevada sweep Tuesday and Wednesday and less than 24 hours before President Bush is slated to address a local contractor's union today.
Meanwhile a representative for the Kerry campaign criticized the event, which took place as the senator pitched his plan to lower health care costs to seniors in Henderson. Kerry said the doctors' pronouncement "distorts the real issue" behind the state's medical woes.
The four physicians blamed trial lawyers for failing to curb multimillion-dollar malpractice judgments and settlements, which they said are to blame for a spike in the cost of malpractice insurance. Bush, they said, would stabilize the medical liability system by limiting the amount juries can award for patients' pain and suffering and reducing the timeframe during which a patient can file a claim.
Opponents of such limits have said that there should not be caps on jury awards because every case is different and some cases involving severe malpractice should result in multi-million dollar judgments and settlements. They also point out that the system serves as a check and balance penalizing bad doctors and forcing the medical profession to better police its own ranks.
At Wednesday's event, the doctors represented "Keep Our Doctors In Nevada," a local advocacy group formed to drum up support for a November ballot measure that would cap the pain and suffering amount a patient can win against a doctor at $350,000.
Dr. Allan Boruszak, a longtime Las Vegas gynecologist, said high cost of medical liability insurance forced him to close his practice on West Charleston Boulevard in June. He is now planning to open another practice in North Carolina, a state that will not charge him an additional fee to transfer his medical license, Boruszak said.
"If you force physicians to practice in this environment, they will not stay," Boruszak said of closing his local practice, where, he said, he had treated patients for 21 years. "It was a matter of survival."
According to the state Board of Medical Examiners, Boruszak has settled three malpractice claims against him since 1997, including one for $500,000.
By last year Boruszak said his insurance rates had become so high that he only took home $8,500 after taxes and operating costs.
Dr. Edward Spoon, another Las Vegas gynecologist tapped to criticize Kerry, said he has seen his malpractice insurance rates almost triple to nearly $150,000 a year, enough to where he may not be able to afford to continue practicing in Nevada.
But Spoon, who has practiced in Las Vegas for 11 years, said he has no immediate plans to leave the area.
"(Medical malpractice) reform isn't a partisan issue," Spoon said. "So far Sen. Kerry has been silent on the issue."
A 2002 study by the Nevada Medical Association found the state has the 48th worst doctor-patient ratio in the nation.
Sean Smith, Nevada spokesman for Kerry's campaign, dismissed the charges, saying the Republican campaign was trying to "change the subject" in the wake of the senator's Wednesday morning address to seniors in Henderson.
He also criticized the president's attacks on trial lawyers, including the Bush campaign's targeting of vice presidential nominee John Edwards' background as a trial lawyer who handled malpractice cases.
Smith said this tactic is just another attempt to provide "another distraction from their own failures to do anything about the real problems Nevadans are facing. It's something they want to blame the trial lawyers for. We know that."
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