werner@aecom.UUCP (Craig Werner) (08/17/85)
From American Medical News (Aug. 9, 1985), p.12, plus some ersatz Werner: The nation's largest insurer of Midwives announced recently that they would no longer offer coverage as the end of this year. This week, the ANA, the American Nurses Association, announced that they would cover Nurse-Midwives in the 24 states covered by the Nurse Practice Act. However, in the face of soaring obstetrical premiums, the coverage is only likely to last until April 1986, when the ANA policy is up for renewal. In the other states and possibly in these 24 after next April the loss of affordable, or in fact any, insurance, could mean the extinction of the midwife profession. Nurse widwives make less than most Obstetricians pay in malpractice insurance premiums, which have soared from $10,000/yr in 1980 to well over $80-100,000/yr (for Obstetricians) in some parts of the country. In New York, scores of doctors have given up performing deliveries rather than pay the high premiums. The only long term solution is legislative reform which caps jury awards, legal fees, or other similar solutions. -- Craig Werner !philabs!aecom!werner "The world is just a straight man for you sometimes"