[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Tort reform, make EVERYONE pay something...even illegal aliens, and remember that doctors have to pay a fortune in TIME and money to go to school to try and save lives. If they make them go back to work without tort reform and without stopping the freeloading, we're into full-blown socialism.

[RLK]

Reddy, who drives a Subaru with 110,000 miles, said with the rising insurance costs, he must earn $250,000 before seeing $1 in profit.

The situation is driving physicians out of busines and driving medical costs through the roof for patients who must eventually pay the bill.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

The Plaintiff's Bar has become a part of American medicine just like the mob has infiltrated the Teamsters.

[mc10]

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 but if this trend continues governments will eventually be able to take over insuring these people... in effect forcing them to function as quasi government employees...added to the already burdensome control by insurance companies and medicare the incentive to go into medicine will be largely removed and the quality of care may suffer greatly

[Oberon]

Hear that?

It's the sound of Atlas shrugging.

[Fishing-guy]

Let's also not forget the large and small business owners. Our entire tort legal system is out of wack. It will eventually drive these businesses who can to move out of these business unfriendly states or country.

[alloysteel]

Tort law, as practiced in the US, is the Great American Lottery, with the primary recipients of the awards being the "hard-working" trial lawyers, whose blind ambition have made them the "new rich" which have been so deeply despised in other eras. They are the most loathsome of parasites, contributing nothing to a lasting legacy, but sporting the most recent and most fashionable opinions and emblems of a transient prestige. They are the abusers of our age, as unprincipled as the "robber barons" of the 19th Century, and with even fewer fetters on their actions.

[FreePaul]

If we really want to put the lawyers out of business we should encourage the government to take over the payment for legal services. They have been successful in putting doctors out of business why not lawyers.

I get aggravated when I see doctor's bills paid by government agencies at about twenty percent of the billed amount when at the same time the Hospital bill is paid in full including all of the bogus, inflated and fraudulent charges. If you question these charges you get shuffled around the bureaucracy until you get tired and give up. Then the insurance rates go up to cover "increased medical care".

[clintonh8r]

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

[tsomer]

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

Since we seem bound to nationalize something, let's nationalize the legal system: pay all the lawyers a flat fee administered by the government. Then everybody could afford the same level of legal competence: a level playing field.

While we're at it, let's pay jurors 50 bucks a day; that way we get some with brains.

Justice for all, that's my line ;-)

[Redleg Duke]

I hear that the law schools are having trouble attracting white males. Nothing but females and minorities.

Tort reform will take care of that problem. When they find out they will have to work, they will avoid it like the plague!

[JennysCool]

Being a cynic, I'm not usually the one to say "Got Lemons? Make Lemonade!" but 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. Just thinkin', and Happy New Year all!

[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.

[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.

[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?

[mountaineer]

Please visit a thread from a few days ago, Doctors Taking Leaves of Absence to Protest Rising Malpractice Premiums; A City Without Surgeons, about the Wheeling, Weirton and Glen Dale walkouts. Also, for latest local news articles, the website for the Wheeling, W.Va. newspapers is here.

[meyer]

See also here:

here

[monkeyshine]

I have a friend who is a surgeon, and another who is a lawyer. Guess which one drives a porsche 911 convertible and which one drives a 1993 Toyota.

Yes, we need tort reform. I'd much rather see the surgeon drive a porsche than the lawyer.

[Lady In Blue]

WVA is Robert Byrd's state and his son-in-law is a doctor.I wonder what position he'll take on tort reform?

[McGavin999]

What we need is tort reform along with doctor reform. If a doctor is guilty of real malpractice there should be severe penalties for the doctor. Instead, he's allowed to continue to practice. That allows for a small percentage of doctors to raise the costs for insurance for all the other doctors.

Loser pays would be a great part of tort reform. It would stop over half of the nonesense claims. If the jury understood that a guilty verdict against a doctor would result in him losing his license, they wouldn't be so free with the rewards. Now they figure it's some insurance company that will pay. It's a vicious circle and the only ones making out are the lawyers and the insurance companies. Ever wonder why they don't fight the claims.....they get a percentage of the premiums as profit.

[mn12]

I read some liberal commentary on this issue, and they basically say "Those money hungry greedy bastards have a duty to the public to keep working!"

Hardly a day goes by where I don't see something that sounds like it was lifted directly from Atlas Shrugged.