Posted on 07/29/2009 7:11:29 AM PDT by paltz
Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky talked about the high costs of health care today. In particular, Mr. McConnell pointed out how malpractice lawsuits affect how expensive healthcare can become. Dr. Orrin Devinsky, NYU Langone Medical Center neurologist and researcher agrees with Senator McConnell. Dr. Devinsky told the Washington Times,:
"By some calculations forty-five to well over fifty percent of the money paid for malpractice actually goes to lawyers and administrators not to the patients. The large percentage of malpractice suits when reviewed independently of doctors and lawyers are felt not to be justified and many people who are wronged don't ever get malpractice reimbursement. And that's just the cost of malpractice directly."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Well, DUH! The RATS are firmly in the pockets of the Trial Lawyers. Anything the RATS promulgate is going to be to help their primary constituents...the Trial Lawyers.
This is the Elephant in the room that nobody wants to put on the table for reform. This tells you how big the Trial Lawyer Lobby is.
I think it is a conflict of interest for ANY lawyer scum to sit in a legislative body. I'd like to outlaw it with a Constitutional amendment.
-ccm
The patient can come in and tell the doctor their problems and then the doctor can agree to take the patient’s case for 40-60% of everything the patient receives the doctor's services. Of course the poor will be well served (just like they are by lawyers) by not having to pay anything if they are not cured.
Of course some cases will be harder than others and the doctors can decide which ones to take up front. When doctors are accused of making too much money they can point out all of the tests and work they do for the patients that die and they never get reimbursed for. A true sacrifice in the service of the poor.
Perhaps he’ll appoint John Edwards trial lawyer CZAR!
So, how will malpractice suits be handled under the new Obamacare? I mean, ordinarily you’d sue the hospital - but now the State will be the doctor’s employer, and the State isn’t going to let you sue it for malpractice.
So on the face of it, you might think malpractice suits will simply disappear. But that would put tons of trial lawyers out of business, so that probably won’t happen.
My guess is the gov’t will allow doctors to be sued as individuals only, and wash their hands of the matter. “Not my problem. The State can’t be held liable for what an incompetent doctor did.”
This, along with lowered doctor salaries, will of course reduce the supply of medical care even further, causing more and more severe rationing.
That's done on purpose in order to create the next controversy which will result in full nationalization of healthcare with doctors and nurses becoming civil servants.
Any health care legislation without tort reform is worthless, imho.
The fix for all lawyer abuse problems is loser pays.
I like it! Especially after having three surgeries for the same issue.
All kidding aside....I may not like lawyers but now that I have seen what happens when you have limited tort auto insurance (in the event of an accident where someone is at fault and seriously injures you) I am not for these limitations in healthcare. Especially since injuries occur all the time! I see it only hurting the consumer and benefitting the insurers and the government.
There is another shoe to drop, IMHO. The Military now has the Feres Doctrine, which prevents an Active Duty “paitent” from winning any malpractice suit against the Military Medical System. It isn’t too far-fetched to think something similar would be implemented on a Government-Run Health Care System. The costs of continuing malpractice insurance and settling the awards from malpractice legal action would / could be erased by a single action from Congress if it meant saving tons of money! The Trial Lawyers are facing a hidden threat to their income stream! In fact the natural tendency would be to run them out of business!
Same thing goes for the Unions. They become unnecessarily / unwanted when the Government takes over private business!
Agreed.
Yeah, the State just points and laughs when unions interfere with the operation of private businesses and run those businesses into the ground.
But somehow unions will become a huge problem when they interrupt the flow of cash into democrat senators’ pockets!
Hell, most of our elected officials ARE trial lawyers. Ya think they are likely to keep their kind from making millions in phony lawsuits?? BWAHAHAHAHAHA
What do you do for a living?
Not totally. The actual deserving plaintiff is still badly used by the commonality of the contingency arrangement, where the tort lawyers set their rates at 40% plus, supposedly to cover the cases they lose, and then reject cases that they don't think they can easily win.
A poor client with an easy case is generally greatly abused by the contingency arrangement.
From American Thinker
“As the law stands now, trial lawyers are prevented from suing your managed care company for punitive damages! Imagine being a lawyer and seeing all those gorgeous jury awards for pain and suffering just waiting to be plucked and being told, “Sorry — I’m protected by ERISA.” There’s only so much blood you can get out of a single doctor or hospital. But the managed care plans are gigantic turnips! So once the behemoth health care bill is finally dumped on your legislator’s desk, I will be willing to wager that somewhere in its depths will be obscure language concerning ERISA. Because if there is one thing I know about lawyers, they don’t stay quiet without a very good reason.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/a_health_care_offer_we_cant_re.html
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