Category: General
Philip K. Howard on the Need for a Popular Movement to Revive Individual Responsibility
Recounting a recent conversation, Philip K. Howard writes on his blog on TheAtlantic.com that “America has lost sight of the core principle of freedom—the power of each individual, at every level of responsibility, to make choices that adapt to current goals and circumstances.” He continues that our blindness to this principle—caused by the growth of law—has resulted in doctors practicing defensively, teachers losing control of their classrooms, and government officials being unable to balance budgets. Howard calls for a popular movement to revive individual responsibility, writing that “t’s hard to see any way forward except a new approach to law and government that re-empowers people to grab hold of problems and put their hands to work to solve the challenges of our time.”
July 21, 2010 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Dennis McCuistion Interviews Philip K. Howard for KERA Channel 13 in Austin, TX
Over the weekend, McCuistion TV host Dennis McCuistion interviewed Philip K. Howard about the problematic role of litigation in American culture. Video of the segment, which was originally broadcast on KERA Channel 13 in Austin, TX, is now available online:
April 26, 2010 | Comments (0) | Permalink
President Obama Endorses Health Courts
On Tuesday, President Obama issued a letter to congressional leaders in which he proposed appropriating $50 million to states to pilot medical liability alternatives, including special health courts. Developed by Philip K. Howard’s nonprofit legal reform coalition Common Good and the Harvard School of Public Health, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the health court proposal has been long championed by Howard and Common Good as the best way to bring reliability, efficiency, and fairness to medical justice. Health courts would also reduce the practice of defensive medicine – which adds billions of dollars of waste to the cost of health care – and would provide for the openness needed to improve patient safety.
In a Common Good press release, Howard states: “This is a huge breakthrough. … Special health courts should provide quicker justice to patients injured by mistakes and give physicians confidence that they will not be dragged through years of litigation when they did nothing wrong.”
Howard was also featured in HealthLeaders Media. “I think it’s very important as we build American healthcare,” Howard said an the interview, “to create a reliable system of justice that all parties can trust.”
[Yahoo! News]
[Common Good]
[HealthLeaders Media]
March 04, 2010 | Comments (0) | Permalink
'Four Ways to Fix a Broken Legal System' (TED)
The video of Philip K. Howard’s TED Talk, Four Ways to Fix a Broken Legal System, is now up:
TED Curator Chris Anderson has the following to say about Howard’s talk (via Twitter):
- We’re about to release a talk from TED2010 that I wish every member of Congress, every Supreme Court justice would see…. about 8 hours ago
- Philip Howard on how to ease the suffocating stranglehold of law in US http://on.ted.com/89lO Please RT. Stunning talk. #TED about 8 hours ago
[TED]
[Twitter]
[Huffington Post]
February 22, 2010 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Philip K. Howard One of the "Fascinating People You've Never Heard Of"
CNN correspondents John D. Sutter and Richard Galant include Philip K. Howard among the “ten fascinating people you’ve never heard of” from this year’s TED Conference. Dubbing Howard “the anti-lawyer lawyer,” Sutter and Galant report:
A partner in the New York-based law firm Covington & Burling, Philip Howard is a crusader against the excesses of his own profession. Howard, author of “Life Without Lawyers: Liberating Americans from Too Much Law,” gave a blistering talk at TED about how “the land of the free has become a legal minefield.”
He cited the Florida school district that banned running at recess as an example of how “people no longer feel free to act on their best judgment” for fear of getting sued. “People are acting like idiots,” he said. “For law to be a platform for freedom, people have to trust it.”
Howard pushes for policy changes in health care, education and other fields through an organization he founded, Common Good, which describes itself as “a non-profit, non-partisan legal reform coalition dedicated to restoring common sense to America.”
February 16, 2010 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Arianna Huffington's Notes From TED: Can Simplicity and Innovation Overcome Complexity and Cynicism?
In her notes on the 2010 TED series, Arianna Huffington gives a rundown of TED curator Chris Anderson’s opening remarks. Huffington states that Anderson “met the zeitgeist head on, talking about his rage at the fact that every idea about how to deal with our big problems is crushed on a wall of cynicism and complexity.” She goes on to quote Anderson’s remarks on Session 11, titled “Simplicity,” for which Philip K. Howard will one of the speakers, this Saturday, February 13. “We are choking ourselves in a web of complexity,” States Anderson in the quote. “Our financial system is so complex it can’t be regulated. The health care plan is so complex no one understands it. Our politics is so complex it’s become a complete mess.” Anderson then gave brief statements about the presenters, including the following about Howard: “‘Philip Howard,’ he said. ‘His talk is an important call to rethink the role of law. The application of our laws has become so perverse, it chokes off innovation.’”
[Huffington Post]
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February 11, 2010 |
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Wall Street Journal Law Blog Q & A with Philip K. Howard, Part 2
As promised, part 2 of Philip K. Howard’s interview with The Wall Street Journal Law Blog’s Ashby Jones.
[Wall Street Journal Law Blog]
February 11, 2010 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Wall Street Journal Law Blog Q & A with Philip K. Howard
On Monday, Ashby Jones of the Wall Street Journal Law Blog published part one of his interview with Philip K. Howard. The conversation focused primarily on Life Without Lawyers, which is now available in paperback, using the book as a starting place to discuss the finer points of Howard’s critiques, how they differ from those offered by proponents of traditional reform (such as tort reform), and what practical solutions he offers. Part Two should be forthcoming today.
[Wall Street Journal Law Blog]
February 09, 2010 | Comments (0) | Permalink
VIDEO: Philip K. Howard Delivers Opening Keynote at Georgetown CBPP Event
Below is a video excerpt from the December 4, 2009 event, “Unpacking Customer Satisfaction: The Role of Customer Complaints Across Industries and Agencies,” hosted by the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, in which Philip K. Howard delivers the opening keynote address.
[Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy]
February 04, 2010 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Fulfilling the Promise: Panel One - What are the Most Promising Alternatives to Fix Healthcare?
Although the entire webcast is archived here, sections of the Common Good forum are now available for viewing. Here is panel one, for which Philip K. Howard was among the speakers:
December 22, 2009 | Comments (0) | Permalink
On December 11, 2009, Philip K. Howard sat down with NPR’s Robert Siegel to discuss medical liability reform as part of the Maxwell School/Public Agenda Policy Breakfast Series.
Watch the video below:
December 17, 2009 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Philip K. Howard Discusses School Discipline at EducationNext
“Strong leadership, respect for authority, and perception of fairness are essential to create a positive, productive school culture,” Philip K. Howard writes in a piece for EducationNext. “And yet the encroachment of due process into daily discipline decisions has undermined all three.” Citing a 2009 study by Richard Arum and Doreet Preiss showing “that the threat of litigation is a real presence in the lives of educators, one that casts a shadow over their decisions,” Howard suggests that educators “reverse course” by re-enforcing the role of teachers as leaders in the classroom, and by fostering a culture that will “encourage all members of the school community to participate in promoting the values and discipline protocols in schools.”
December 15, 2009 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Philip K. Howard in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Reform Galaxy Blog
In a posting at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Reform Galaxy blog,
Philip K. Howard discusses the value of health courts as a tool not just for reliable justice, but for improved care and cost containment as well. He speculates about the prospects of Congress passing any constructive medical liability reform, such as the Common Good- and Harvard School of Public Health-designed health court proposal. “The good news,” he writes, “is that, whatever happens in Congress with health courts, the Obama Administration has signaled that it wants to fund pilot projects for liability innovations.”
Referencing Common Good’s December 10th forum, “Fulfilling the Promise” – organized with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation – to aid the Administration’s efforts, Howard reminds us that, despite the trial bar’s opposition to reform, “patient safety experts, consumer groups, providers, as well as editorial boards and the public at large, all overwhelmingly support trying to create a reliable foundation of justice.” Howard concludes by paraphrasing Martin Hatlie, President of the Partnership for Patient Safety and a “Fulfilling the Promise” speaker: “the question is not whether healthcare justice will change, but when.”
December 15, 2009 | Comments (0) | Permalink
On Thursday, December 10th, Common Good, with the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, will hold a forum titled “Fulfilling The Promise: Advancing Patient Safety and Medical Liability Reform Innovations” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The forum is intended to educate “states, health care systems, and other interested entities and individuals…about patient safety and medical liability reform innovations, and how to develop viable proposals for submission to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality next January.” Philip K. Howard will be among the speakers, listed below:
- Dr. Lucian L. Leape, Chair, Lucian Leape Institute at the National Patient Safety Foundation
- Michelle Mello, Professor of Law and Public Health, Harvard School of Public Health
- Randall R. Bovbjerg, Senior Fellow, Health Policy Center, The Urban Institute
- Nancy Foster, Vice President for Quality and Patient Safety Policy, American Hospital Association
- Dr. Albert L. Strunk, Deputy Executive Vice President, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
- Elaine Brightwater, Senior Project Coordinator, Center for Development and Disability, University of New Mexico
- Richard C. Boothman, Chief Risk Officer, University of Michigan Health System
- E. Donald Elliott, Professor (adj) of Law, Yale Law School and Partner, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, Washington DC
- Gordon H. Smith, Executive Vice President, Maine Medical Association
- Dr. Alan C. Woodward, Former President, Massachusetts Medical Society
- Martin J. Hatlie, President, Partnership for Patient Safety
- David J. Oakley, Counsel, Healthcare, Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP
- Robert J. Walling, Principal and Consultant, Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc.
- Philip K. Howard, Chair, Common Good
Questions the forum will address include:
- How can projects be designed to address both patient safety and medical liability?
- What are the best ways to include key stakeholders in projects?
- How can projects be measured and evaluated?
The forum will run from 8:00AM (including a continental breakfast at 8) until 2:00PM. To RSVP for the forum, e-mail your name and contact information to (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Space is limited, but the event will be webcast live, beginning at 8:30AM on December 10th, from the following site: http://www.visualwebcaster.com/event.asp?id=64481.
December 03, 2009 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Spokesman-Review calls Philip K. Howard's Medical Liability Reform Proposal a 'Better Solution'
In a Sunday opinion piece, the editorial board of the Spokesman-Review urges Democrats and Republicans to move past “counterproductive…partisan jabbing” in the health care reform debate. Taking tort reform as an example, the article notes that Democrats eschew the issue entirely because of their ties to trial lawyers, while Republicans rally for non-economic damage caps with the support of insurance companies. “If either side gets what it wants,” argues the Review, “costs in this area won’t be contained.” The problem with damage caps, as the $250,000 medical malpractice award cap in Texas illustrates, is that although they reduce malpractice premiums for physicians and reduce the number of malpractice cases taken to court, “health care costs continue to rise because the savings are not passed along to the public.” The Review sees health courts as a more attractive approach:
A better solution is the one promoted by Common Good’s Philip K. Howard. He calls for Congress to authorize special medical courts, where experts would adjudicate cases in a timely manner. A landmark Harvard study shows that only 3 percent of harmed patients ever file lawsuits. Medical courts could end this roulette wheel of justice by addressing complaints and establishing a culture where apologies for honest mistakes are not fodder for protracted litigation. Plus, such courts would remove defensive medicine as an excuse for unnecessary tests and procedures.
The article goes on to call health courts one of the “low-cost, high-yield solutions to medical inflation.” “If partisans could compromise on these and other issues,” it concludes, “it would be a total victory for the public.”
November 23, 2009 | Comments (0) | Permalink
