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What's wrong with Amendment 3 Amendment 3 is a bad idea. Amendment 3 on Florida's ballot this year is supposed to help physicians with the very high medical malpractice insurance rates they're paying. While the amendment may or may not help the doctors, I think it will make things much worse for the rest of us. Advocates for the amendment say it will limit the amount of money the lawyers will make on each case. They're not exactly right. The amendment limits the amount of money only some of the lawyers make. The amendment limits the fees of contingency lawyers. Those are the lawyers for the injured party - they agree to take a percentage of the amount won and take nothing if they don't win. The amendment, however, does nothing to limit the amount of money the lawyers for the defendant's insurance company can make. Why is this important? Because the defense lawyers are paid by the hour. They have always had the incentive to drag out the proceedings - more hours means a bigger fee - and they can already drag cases out for years. If Amendment 3 passes, they can delay the proceedings so long that the plaintiff's lawyer, limited in fees, can't make a profit. After all, a law office is like any other business - it has to cover payroll, rent, telephone, utilities and all other normal business expenses. If the plaintiff's lawyer can't make a reasonable profit, he simply won't take the case. If he doesn't take the case, the injured person probably gets nothing. If the injured person gets nothing, what happens to him? Suppose he can't work, or requires extensive medical procedures or an extended stay in a nursing home. He will quickly run out of money as medical bills can wipe out a life's savings. What happens to him? I don't think our society will allow such a person to be thrown out into the street. That leaves only government to step in - in other words, the injured person will not be compensated by the person who injured him - he'll be compensated by all of us through the government welfare system. This is another idea pushed by the insurance companies that will make our problems worse. As I wrote earlier, they successfully pushed an idea 25-years ago that directly caused the astronomical verdicts we now see. Vote against Amendment 3.
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