Posted on 01/30/2003 10:53:05 AM PST by not a kook
I can understand a democrat who are marxists and would rather rip their eyes out then read a book on free markets and capitalism. There is no excuse for a conservative not to know it chapter and verse.
Government needs to step out.
Do I need to mention what insurance execs earn?
Yup. Count up their ads, check the sizes and compare to the attorneys. Then get back to me.
I agree with eliminating government from the health field altogether. I would be interested in having you elaborate on how this would affect the problem of high malpractice premiums, without otherwise reforming the judicial process.
Just IMO, caps on certain categories of awards do not constitute government interference in private contracts. Instead, I see them as a restriction on government taking (juries act on behalf of the judiciary when setting awards).
Perhaps patients should be free to voluntarily limit damages in return for lower fees? Those who don't wish to limit damages can pay a surcharge that reflects the physician's extra malpractice insurance costs.
Once this set of caps is in place, it will be for docs. They won't even have to worry about being careful, payment for their services for the elderly is covered via medicaid and medicare, payment for nearly everyone else is covered by insurance which asks few probing questions, and socialist shills want to expand coverage even further, going damn near toward universality.
They're insulated from all economic risk by government.
How socialist is that?
This is *FALSE*. Get your facts straight before you post straw-man arguments based upon blatantly false data.
Need some help? Try here, for example:
http://www.tsbme.state.tx.us/statistics/pls2002.pdf
From the last page:
Total number of physicians (MD and DO) with active license status and a practice address in TX: 38,093 Total number of the above physicians with one or more claims: 19,388 (50.90%)
This is just flat wrong. Ether that or I manage to represent every bad doctor in my region. I am general counsel for any number of clinics ( I don't do med mal defense, though I have a partner that does )and the percentage in our area is much higher than this.
2. A claimant can't even bring a claim unless a doctor has rendered an opinion that there was malpractice.
Also incorrect. Of course bringing a claim and keeping it from being dismissed are different things. However, in my jurisdiction, TN, while expert testimony is required to prove that that doc fell below the local standard of care, the plaintiff's industry can find a doctor to say anything they want for any case they have... for a fee. Finding testimony to keep your case alive is not a problem. But this to a great extent misses the point. The defense lawyer may get a frivolous case dismissed, but the defense costs have still been incurred and there is no real remedy against the plaintiff or the lawyer for filing frivolous suits.
3 That lawyer on the contingency spends many thousands of dollars out of his own pocket before seeing dollar one - frequently, only after appeals have been exhausted. The defense lawyer, on the other hand, has been paid handsomely from moment one. And if the plaintiff loses, not only does the lawyer get paid nothing, he's much poorer out of pocket.
There is some truth to this. While the client is technically responsible for expenses (don't think for a second that they don't come off the top along with the fee before the client sees a dime) many don't have the resources to pay them and the lawyer is left holding the bag. Perhaps this is why many PI lawyers don't actually try cases for the most part. They try and settle them, and fast, so as to get the money in with as little risk as possible.
Ever hear those ambulance chaser ads that have a "client" come on and say that the insurance company was jerking them around and then they hired the lawyer and they got their check in a couple of weeks. What they don't say is that they got their check in a couple of weeks because their lawyer settled their case for fifty cents on the dollar.
4. American courts don't award legal fees to the winner in negligence cases - so that plaintiff who wins nothing but compensatory damages loses a sizable amount out of pocket in the long run only to get partially reimbursed.
American courts also don't force a plaintiff who brings a frivolous suit to pay the fees of the defense. Give the defense a modified, enforced rule 11 type remedy from frivolous lawsuits and perhaps the local PI firms will stop trolling for nursing home suits on my local tv station. (Reduced legal advertising would also have a positive affect on the tort reform issue).
I agree that there are many facets to the problems facing our health care industry and that most of them are caused by government control of the system. However, the tort system is also part of the problem and while tort reform may only be treating the "symptoms" of a system that needs a drastic overhaul, it is better than nothing (and much more likely to happen than said overhaul).
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