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To: Mamzelle
How I wish they *could* be help personally liable for the situation they've created...

Your blame is misplaced, I fear. Obviously, i do not defend alll lawyers, and I certainly do not defend all Plaintiff's lawyers. But, most of the rising costs of health care can be attributed to, in order:

1) managed care (regulation forcing health care providers to charge non-market prices;

2) Federal, state, and local mandates that force facilities to provide patient care to the uninsured, and to illegal immigrants

3) Rising litigation costs (Brought about by two different factors:

a) Plaintiffs willing to sue for anything, and juries willing to award damages for new and suspect injuries. (Don't forget that in EVERY case for damages, an expert DOCTOR must testify to injuries. This includes using phony psuedo-science for make believe injuries.) Without those DOCTORS as experts, no case can be won. Of course, without willing plaintiffs to sue, no case can be heard.

b) Insurance companies that settle frivolous claims to avoid trying meritorious cases. They settle a claim without a practitioners' consent, and then they jack up the rates on that practitioner.

4) Fraud by unscupulous doctors and health care providers that double claim, triple claim, or make bogus claims. (This is another net effect of creating huge managed care companies)

In fact, everyone blames the lawyers, but they have many willing accomplices. Most willing, unfortunately, are uneducated juries. Where I practice, everyone knows that if you have a Plaintiff's case in D.C., you have a good shot at real money. If you have the exact same case in Northern Virginia, you might not even file it. Why? Not because defense counsel is any tougher in Northern Va, it is because a much more educated jury pool is far less forgiving of frivolous suits.

I have never won or lost a case based on my opinion as a lawyer. It's your opinion, sitting in that jury box, that almost always is the deciding factor. (Some crappy cases can be thrown-out by the judge before getting to a jury).

The problem may not be us (lawyers) it may be you (jurors). Like I said, though, my clients are fortune 500 companies and I defend them. So, if you want to kill the class-action suits. They will be quite pleased. Frankly, these companies would rather be paying our corporate boys to find and make business, rather than us litigators in defending their business. (Corporate/transactional stuff is more profitable to us as lawyers as well)

38 posted on 03/27/2003 11:47:51 AM PST by Iron Eagle
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To: Iron Eagle
Counselor, I did not accuse lawyers of being the major drive in the costs of medical care. They can certainly be blamed for doing Orlando out of first-tier trauma care, and probably second-tier very shortly. Other cities, states, and communities are falling also.

The rise in the cost of medical care is many-pronged, and the one prong least discussed is that the better it is, the more it costs. Recently there was a poster on FR asking advice about gall bladder disease. Gall bladder surgery is a big success story--it is a plain vanilla operation, used to be done by slicing through a muscle and recovery was slow. Now it's done with little incisions and this cool little camera that kind of crawls though your innards--recovery is very swift, pain and bad results lower. Unfortunately, that little camera makes the operation much more expensive--seems it costs more than a scalpel . Muliply that by lots of "successes."

Illegal aliens are a huge stress. Mentally ill. Drug abuse, also. (Meth labs, they are a'explodin'--) Compensation is down, and with it the hospital's ability to swap the costs from the unpaying to the paying. Add to that crippling malpractice insurance, and you better make sure your teenager takes part in no car wrecks, because your hospital is a car wreck, too.

39 posted on 03/27/2003 11:58:56 AM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Iron Eagle
You forgot another factor - and that is the "marketing vs. risk management" tug. That would be the practice of not hammering the guys who had valid claims previously leveled against them, and then burdening everybody else with the increase - all in order to keep "the good customer".
42 posted on 03/28/2003 8:07:27 AM PST by Chancellor Palpatine (Paleocons, the French and the UN - Excusing corrupt power mad dictators for decades)
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To: Iron Eagle
How do we deal with places like Madison County, Illinois?
61 posted on 04/12/2003 2:34:52 PM PDT by justshutupandtakeit (Saddam's Democrat Guard will stage suicide attacks against Coalition forces)
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