Wake up to today, Hawaii.
Has Edwards been holding seminars in Hawaii?
Hawaii is one of the most reliably RAT states, so it's no surprise that it is trial lawyer-friendly.
When your baby is dying of a rare disease, call a lawyer. See how that works.
America, reap what you have sown.
Greed will be the undoing of us all. It's a frightening thing to watch.
>>doesn't have any orthopedic surgeons taking emergency room calls regularly
i was surprised that no orthopod was available to me in the e.r. when i busted my arm recently. i am highly insured but the docs in the e.r. filled me with morphine and gave me the name of someone to call first thing in the morning to get the bone reset and a cast on and sent me home. this might explain it.
The lefts first step to socialized medicine is nearly complete. We are now closer to the government 'stepping in' to save the day. "Save the children" blah, blah, blah.
This is a topic deserving of serious and continuing focus, but this article implies cause-and-effect (malpractice lawsuits yield shortages of physicians) without providing the facts to support it. Malpractice premiums for OB-GYNs are up 53% in 5 years in Hawaii, and doctors are growing scarce. Ok, but how has the number of malpractice lawsuits in Hawaii changed over the past, say, 10 years? How have litigation defense costs increased for medical malpractice insurers in that time period? How have the settlements (in cases that have settled) and judgments (in cases that have been tried to verdict) changed in that same period? How have amounts awarded for "pain and suffering" changed/increased? If the spiraling insurance premiums are all due to litigation -- ever-increasing costs to defend ever-growing numbers of lawsuits, costs to settle, excessive jury awards, frivolous lawsuits, etc. -- where are the facts to connect those dots? I take great interest in this subject, and am as concerned as anyone about the future of medical care in our country, but I don't view this particular article as shedding very much light on the root cause of the problem described.