DOCTORS SAY POSSIBLE WALKOUT IS NOT ABOUT GREED, BUT OUT-OF-CONTROL INSURANCE COSTS

AP Breaking News ^ | 01 January 2003 | Vicki Smith

[fightu4it]

Perhaps the premiums would not be so high if you didn't have things happening like doctors leaving patients on operating tables with open incesions while they run down the block to deposit a check at the local bank.

[banjo joe]

Funny how Hillary and co. jumped on healthcare reform, but nobody was interested in lawyer reform.

gubmint is composed of lawyers, and hires more daily. Law schools are filled to capacity (compared with engineering, etc). Gubmint is where they go to work.

[redrock]

"...good, solid, capitalist solution. America's doctors should band together and form their own insurance company -- created and sustained with investments from the members -- which has a solid team of investigators on call to ferret out fraud."

EXCELLENT idea!!!!!

But...sadly...after so MANY years of everyone being taught (and most believing) that the government is the 'bestower of everything'.....it won't happen.

Instead...the Doctors will keep demanding that the Government 'do something'.....when the power to change the situation was in the Dr.'s hands all along.

redrock

p.s....Have a Happy New Year!!

[GOP_Proud]

What a great book-jacket blurb. If our library was open today, I'd be there checking the book out. I think I'll do a search for an eBook for my Palm. Otherwise, I'll check it out tomorrow.

I read The Fountainhead years ago and enjoyed it. I don't know why I didn't try any of her other works. I don't mean to get into a philosophical debate. I just like to read.

[lonestar]

Gov.-elect Ed Rendell promised to fight for $220 million in aid for doctors this year. The aid offer is tentative one.

Doctor's don't need aid. They need tort reform. Why should doctors feed lawyer's greed?

Has anybody ever heard of a lawyer being sued for malpractice?

Maybe it's time for socialized "lawyering." If you kill somebody, you can't hire Johnnie Cochran; you get the luck of the draw.

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Tort reform should include the British "loser pays" system. Trial lawyers will be running for the courthouse exits if that ever happens.

Ooooh...I like.

[GWfan]

I disagree. Doctors will simply use their minds and go into other fields. Many of my friends and my own personal Dr. tell me that they will not be in their profession in 10 years. They are sick of being sued. Frivilous lawsuits are ruining healthcare and the smart docs are retiring.

On the bright side, plenty of good judges and lawyers are getting sick of this type of lawsuit.

[lonestar]

...difficult to have a lot of sympathy for the few doctors that i know and have known...all are doing quite well *after* paying required insurance costs and most earn more than me...

Are you trained to do brain surgery?

My uncle has been dead 20 years. He was an anithesiologist (sp?) and I remember hearing him say his malpractice premiums were $100,000. To my knowledge he was never sued. He practiced and taught in a medical school.

His oldest son had a plan, about thirty years ago, to go to law school, then med school and to sue doctors "because that's where the money is."

My cousin graduated from U of Texas law school but even with "pull" wasn't smart enough to get into U of T med school.

He does practice law and he does sue doctors; just wasn't smart enough to be one.

[GWfan]

I don't like Rand much, but your post is right on.

[templar]

Trial lawyers will be running for the courthouse exits if that ever happens.

Why? If the trial lawyer on a contingency case loses now, he makes nothing. If we establish a loser pays system, the trial lawyer on a contingency case will still make nothing.

A plaintiff that loses makes nothing in damage awards. An indigent plaintif that loses under the current system will get nothing. An indigent plaintiff that loses under a loser pays system will still get nothong and, being indigent, will pay nothing. You, of course, will probably be required to post twenty or thirty thousand up front to bring a justified suit. Are you, or the indigent, more likely to sufer consequences of loser pays?

My experience is that the financially responisble usually aren't the ones that bring the lawsuits that everyone is complaining about. It's the people with little of nothing to loose that are the problem (look at the 'mcdonalds made me fat' stuff). If all you have is your welfare, or small salary, and less personal property than bankruptcy allows to be siezed (value of home, car, etc that are exempt will vary from State to State), why wouldn't you try to strike it rich by suing to the max for anything you can? And why wouldn't a trial lawyer who thinks you might win (or one who is promoting a cause) take your case?

I don't see anything changing with a loser pays system except denying the successful working class access to the legal system for satisfaction of grievances.

[lonestar]

Sorry! I thought you were the "income envier."

I agree with you, not mc10.

[Vinnie]

I've actually tried to think of Edwards' qualifications to be president. I can't come up with ONE.

Imagine him in foreign policy. ZERO experience ( flew over the Middle East once)

CiC ? Zero experience( he hasn't even been in charge of a State National Guard as X42 claimed in his 'resume'.

Domestic Issues? unknown

His presidency would be a disaster of ineptness.
I cringe at the possibility.

[clintonh8r]

Lawyers will be a lot less likely to take a weak case if they know there may not be a pot of gold at the end of the case. They're likely to lose their expenses as well as their fees if they know their client doesn't have the capacity to pay after a negative verdict. What's wrong with that? Is it worse than the system we have now? Maybe we should just let the trial lawyers continue to run rampant and abuse the system. They aren't just destroying our tort system, they're rapidly eroding the financial viability of our (barely) free market health care system.

[templar]

Maybe it's time for socialized "lawyering." If you kill somebody, you can't hire Johnnie Cochran; you get the luck of the draw.

Socialized medicine would be a more likely solution. Less problem with the constitutional issues.

To those who see socialism as a solution, that is. You, apparently, do. I do not.

[Polybius]

it seems to me this is an excellent opportunity for a good, solid, capitalist solution. America's doctors should band together and form their own insurance company -- created and sustained with investments from the members -- which has a solid team of investigators on call to ferret out fraud. Such a monolithic company, it seems to me, would go a long way toward reducing individual premiums, and its lobbying power could promote real legislative action on tort reform.

In places like West Virginia and Mississippi, verdicts often have little to do with "The Truth". They have to do with how well a lawyer can play the jury just like Johnny Cochran played the O.J. jury.

Such an insurance company would simple go bankrupt the first time a West Virginia jury awarded a $100 million verdict because a trauma surgeon, after doing all he could, failed to save the life of a cute, 24 year old mother of three who arrived in the E.R. with massive head trauma after an 85 MPH car vs. telephone pole motor vehicle accident.

"Look at those three poor, young orphans, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Look at their tears. How they miss their beautiful Mommy! But Mommy will never hold them in her arms again because that man, yes, that man sitting in that chair, let her die in surgery that night!!"

In regards to lobbying, you can rest assured that a healthy chunk of the trial lawyer's share of all outrageous verdicts is contributed to the campaign funds of their lawyer buddies that make up the majority of State Legislatures.

The only way that doctors can fight such a system is simply to call Mayflower Van Lines, move to another state and tell the good citizens of West Virginia, "The next time you need urgent medical care, call your trial lawyer."

[Timesink]

Regardless of the general argument about whether or not doctors make too much money, there is no argument that doctors in WV make quite a bit less of it than they do in most other states, while paying the highest premiums in the country.

What good is making $500K/yr if you're paying $450K/yr just for insurance?

[Timesink]

Tort reform should include the British "loser pays" system. Trial lawyers will be running for the courthouse exits if that ever happens.

Except for one problem: All the American people ever elect to Congress are trial lawyers.

[Timesink]

America's doctors should band together and form their own insurance company -- created and sustained with investments from the members -- which has a solid team of investigators on call to ferret out fraud.

A few are doing just that, according to a few scattered stories I've read here and there.

[JennysCool]

That's encouraging ... I hope a lot more sign on!

[clintonh8r]

Yes, I've never understood why Americans seem to be so infatuated with lawyers. It must be all those inane TV shows which almost always depict lawyers in a positive light.