Posted on 02/14/2010 9:23:17 PM PST by Nachum
President Barack Obama wants a bipartisan deal on health reform, but trial lawyers don’t want him to deal on a top Republican priority: tort reform.
Trial lawyers defeated President George W. Bush’s push for medical liability reform and successfully lobbied to water down tort reform provisions in healthcare reform bills this Congress. But the battle is far from over.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
And that is why lawyers in general are hated only slightly less than politicians in general.
OF course, when you consider that the majority of those in CONgress are lawyers...
Hospitals aren't going to be very safe for grandma when Obama's death panels are denying her treatment.
John Edwards made $50 million plus suing hospitals and doctors using junk science.
These personal injury lawyers make vast fortunes (the direct and indirect cost of which is ultimately reflected in high health insurance premiums) and use their money to continue to rig the game in their favor.
Since Judd Gregg is retiring, he doesn't need to be trying to break any deadlocks in the Obamacare debate. He should stand down on this one.
The trial lawyers are correct. Why tie a doctor’s negligence and the damages that come from that negligence to a bill about care for one and all?
Whoever has wrestled with this ball of wax can see the cost equations. The Rats have been giving us true voodoo economics while the GOP understands we can’t spend a dollar we do not have. The GOP claims that self-protective medicine figures too prominently in costs and in busying out facilities. The lawyers, understandably, beg to differ and say they are the only thing standing between the doctors and Granny getting a left foot amputated when it was the right foot that had gangrene.
Anyhow. Ignoring this would be like ignoring insurance when you figure out whether you can afford a certain car.
Idunno why people call Obama an empty suit. I think of him more as a pinata filled with trial lawyers and commies.
See earlier discussion re this topic.
The Democrats Receive Too Much Lawyer Money to Pass Tort Reform.
The Lid/Various ^ | 2/14/2010 | The Lid
Posted on Sunday, February 14, 2010 6:47:29 PM by Shellybenoit
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2451470/posts
BASTARD socialist demoRAT commie pigs, including the rat bastard liberal socialist lawyers!!! That's a flat out lie, because doctors feel compelled to order add'l tests & procedures JUST to preclude any possibility that if something unforeseen happens, than they can point to a battery of tests or procedures. The 1/4 of 1% really pertains to actual tort settlements, not the overwhelming costs paid to run add'l tests or procedures, just in case a malpractice trial would take place.
The one reform that would actually bring down the price of everything and improve health care, the economy and over-regulation and even the GDP and we can’t touch it. Yeah, they really care about America.
Because the tortfest that is American law results in a huge amount of waste in an attempt to avoid getting sued. Current malpractice law has little or nothing to do with actual malpractice, it’s a lottery for less then perfect outcomes.
-PJ
Heh, good one. I'm going to steal that. Hope you don't mind.
Barack, the cat, has jumped on me twice to go to bed. He sleeps on top of me where he can get warm. I guess I had better hit the sack.
Anyway, the real issue is that medmal tort reform ain’t going to do squat. It is barely a drop in the bucket. The GOP has turned it into this huge bogey man so they won’t have to deal with real issues.
So pass it. Or don’t. The medical costs ain’t going to go down. If the insurance companies don’t pay for their insured’s screwups, then who is? Can you spell, T A X P A Y E R.
For those of you who are interested in the facts, and the real costs, here is a good read:
http://www.centerjd.org/air/TrueRiskF.pdf
Now if any of you out there are Jesus, maybe youcan take the $5 billion in medmal payouts (total for good and bad lawsuits) and maybe you can pass a miracle over it and turn it into something significant in a $2.4 trillion medical cost outlay.
Or maybe you can whip up a miracle or two to explain why costs went up in Texas after “reform” or maybe you can explain how Dr. Gawande (one of the links in the above link) maybe just misunderheard how the doctors were padding the bills with extra tests.
Good luck. If this stuff passes though, I hope you guys will not get mad at me when I start BWAHAHAHA-ing you later on.
parsy, who hates to leave this conversation and will do the ITYS! thing
I'm also certain that they would never ever run me through a gamete of tests to cover their rear in case of a misdiagnosis. sarcasm/
Apparently, you are quite ignorant of medical practice, to make this statement: “Anyway, the real issue is that medmal tort reform ain’t going to do squat. It is barely a drop in the bucket.” If you were actually practicing medicine outside of the university setting, you would know the foolishness of those words.
"The 1/4 of 1% really pertains to actual tort settlements, not the overwhelming costs paid to run add'l tests or procedures, just in case a malpractice trial would take place."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2451522/posts?page=10#10
and http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2451522/reply?c=17
You can do anything with a set of numbers. In your case you seem to have only used some of them and ignored the rest.
My malpractice is half of what it was 5 years ago, before Texas tort reform gave us all relief. Imagine that extrapolated across all doctors, all hospitals.
One of our local hospital systems has been able to use the money they once spent on malpractice costs to nearly double indigent care.
http://www.texaspolicy.com/commentaries_single.php?report_id=2848
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