Medical errors sparked this protest in Florida against malpractice award limits. Some studies estimate 98,000 patient deaths from medical errors each year.

No one expects to go to the hospital and get sicker, or even die, but thousands of Americans do each year.

Betsy Lehman, the health reporter for the Boston Globe, died from an overdose during chemotherapy. Willie King, another patient cited in a study "To Err is Human" by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), had the wrong leg amputated. Eight-year-old Ben Kolb died during "minor surgery" because of a drug mix-up.

More than 44,000 Americans die each year as a result of medical errors according to conservative estimates by the IOM.

More Americans die each year from preventable medical errors than from automobile accidents (43,458), breast cancer (42,297) or AIDS (16,516).

Hospital errors and drug mix-ups lead to higher costs for everyone. The IOM estimates that injuries from medical errors add between $17 and $29 billion in total costs each year (lost income, lost household production, disability and health care costs) with health care costs representing more than half of the total.

Union-represented employees can curb pressures to pay higher premiums and co-pays by working with employers to improve the quality of care and reduce medical errors.

"Faced with rising costs, companies are tempted to merely pass on increased health costs to employees and leave it at that," said IAM President Tom Buffenbarger.

"If we insist that employers look at the quality of the health care they are buying, we can make it safer and more affordable for our members," he said.

To improve health care quality, the IAM belongs to the Leapfrog Group for Patient Safety Standards.

Leapfrog members provide health benefits to about 33 million Americans employed by Fortune 500 companies and other private and public healthcare purchasers.

"Union-negotiated health plans are expensive and we want to ensure that our members are getting safe, quality care," said IAM Strategic Resources Director Steve Sleigh.

"Working with our employers through Leapfrog and other initiatives we can better protect our members' health and help slow down rising health care costs."

Implementing Leapfrog's top three patient safety recommendations dramatically reduces medical errors and saves lives. Medication errors could be cut by 50% if doctors were required to enter medication orders into a computer-based system that is linked to error prevention software.

Evidence-based hospital referrals could cut the risk of a patient dying during surgery and other complex medical procedures by 30%.

And deaths in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) could be cut by 10% if ICU's were staffed by doctors credentialed in critical care medicine. Sounds so simple. Sounds like common sense. But, in a health care system spinning out of control, even the simplest and most sensible steps are difficult.

"That's why," says Steve Sleigh, "employers and unions have a vested interest in pressuring insurers, doctors and hospitals to improve quality. The dollars saved can be poured back into the pockets of their workers and investors or reinvested in new plant and equipment."

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