Unbelievable
Oct 31st, 2009 by admin
(As I continue to abuse DA’s hospitality, allowing me to guest post at will. Sorry, DA. There’s just so much historic activity going on right now. I can’t seem to stop.)
What’s going on with this health legislation right now is beyond baffling. The only question now is will the cure be worse than the diesase? Examples:
Obama: Tort reform will be a part of this.
Pelosi: Screw that. Trial lawyers are my friends. We’re going to make it HARDER to pull off tort reform.
Obama: Public option will be competitive and save money.
Pelosi: Public option will cost MORE than private insurance, but we’re going to make it really hard for businesses to offer private insurance, so they’ll just dump their insurance plans anyway.
That is why i made you an author, my friend. I am glad to see you contribute especially when I am so busy. I missed your writing and judging by the stats so do a lot of others. Your posts are usually in the top 3. Do keep abusing a couple times a week! Daily blogging and administration may have gotten to be too much, but nothing stops you from occassional contributions.
I consider it an honor that you drop by. I have the highest level of respect for all our contributors. It is an honor to work with such a crew.
Burris says Pelosi says: “We’re going to make it HARDER to pull off tort reform.”
What Pelosi means: No fricking way am I going to take away the little guy’s means of representation.
Burris says Pelosi says: “Public option will cost MORE than private insurance”
What Pelosi means: Dummy, it costs more to insure everybody than it costs to leave a whole bunch of people o ut.
Let’s get to some substance. I would think that Democrats would want something they own to work. It seems they have lost sight of any notion of effective policy and are only trying to make deals to pass something. That is why the effective dates are not until 2013. They want to take credit in the next two elections but not deal with the consequences until later. They don’t care about the “little people”.
Can anybody explain what the goal of tort reform is? Medical negligence is the third leading cause of death.
Let’s say your child is misdiagnosed as having bone cancer, receives three times the dose of chemotherapy, leaving him in a permanent coma. How would tort reform help the victim?
I agree with you that tort reform must not take away a person’s right to sue for justice. You are ignoring the widespread abuse of the system where children who have naturally caused handicaps are used by lawyers to get paid from Ob-Gyn’s. The doctors did nothing to cause the problem and may have helped, but they have to pay. It makes all of our rates go up and makes it harder for high risk cases to get early intervention.
David can you give us of some specific instances or details whereby children born with natural handicaps were unfairly awarded damages to the extent that “all of our rates go up”.
There would have to be tens of thousands of case like this to have any impact. Do you have any numbers?
I am still not sure if tort reform would help or hurt victims of malpractice like my example of the misdiagnosed child in a coma. I am sure you would not want us to form public policy based on anecdotal evidence or myths.
I think you will agree the problem is not lawyers, the problem is malpractice. Plenty of corrupt medical professionals engage in all kinds of corrupt activity. Malpractice laws protect us, that’s why people like myself are not jumping on the protect doctors bandwagon. Here is a classic real world link about lawyers and malpractice. http://www.gjel.com/verdicts/tenet1.html
“What Pelosi means: No fricking way am I going to take away the little guy’s means of representation. ”
Take away representation? Show me where that has happened. The actual language says nothing about the right to sue, the venue, statutes of limitations or anything procedural. It deals with two things: unlimited awards and unlimited legal fees.
So your argument is W-E-A-K. And I imagine you know it.
Just look at John Edward’s medical malpractice settlements. One was because the patient insisted on not having a c-section. When the child was born with brain damage, he sued the doctor and hospitial for not being persuadsive enough.
It deals with two things: unlimited awards and unlimited legal fees.
Unfortunately, the amount of damage a practitioner can do is also unlimited. If you figure out a way to put a cap on that, we might have a deal.
I encourage everyone to take up David on his suggestion to look at John Edwards’s lawsuits – all of them. These are horrible cases of malpractice and negligence. With award caps in place those people would not have had representation.
It is bad enough that this person’s surviving family received only $2.3 million:
With a $250K cap, they would likely not have found a lawyer at all who could afford to take the case.
If you want to carve out some exception for certain OB cases, especially cerebral palsy, I might go along with that. The fact that Republicans have not proposed narrow OB restrictions shows they are just trying to shut all Americans out of their legal rights.
The best solution is what is on the table. Not caps, but screening of cases prior to trial. A lot of progress is being made without tampering with our jury system. Market forces are doing a decent job at reform without the need for government regulating.
Hospitals that used to go mum deny all then depend on a good lawyer are now owning up, being honest seeking to make the victim whole. State Medical boards , more flagrant in there protection of criminals than the Catholic Church, are at last ending the practice of letting quack doctors go from state to state hospital to hospital. When a quack doctor leaves his instruments in your belly, it’s not the fault of your lawyers.
“Unfortunately, the amount of damage a practitioner can do is also unlimited. If you figure out a way to put a cap on that, we might have a deal.”
Why call them ‘practitioners,’ when you can call them by their real names: bloodsucking trial lawyers.
Dave, I think “practitioner” was a reference to the defendant doctors guilty of malpractice, not the lawyers representing the victims.