Posted on 04/08/2002 12:07:09 PM PDT by jwalburg
Doctors close offices in protest
Associated Press
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EDINBURG, Texas - Hundreds of doctors and other medical professionals closed their offices Monday to protest malpractice lawsuits that they say have led to skyrocketing insurance premiums.
Many of them descended on the Hildago County Courthouse Monday for a "day of awareness."
Dr. Jose Igoa, a 47-year-old psychiatrist who held a picket sign, says he paid $28,000 for medical malpractice insurance last year - three to four times what he paid five years ago. Now, he can't find a renewal policy at all.
Like other doctors here, he says he has been the target of frivolous lawsuits that take time out of his practice and are emotionally stressful.
He says the problem is getting worse.
"We're doctors. We train more than half of our lives to help people. We don't want to cause harm to anybody," he said. "We understand that when we cause some damage we want people to be fairly compensated. But when it comes to legal extortion ... it changes the way we practice medicine."
Up the coast in Nueces County, where 63 percent of doctors had claims filed against them in the last 13 years, doctors planned simultaneous activities to show support.
Emergency services at hospitals will not be stopped.
"They see this as a plea for survival for doctors and patients," said Jon Opelt of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, which helped organize and publicize the protest.
Critics of the walkout say doctors are being misled by groups backed by big business and seeking limits on jury awards. They say there's no guarantee insurance companies will pass savings from such limits onto policy holders. Meanwhile, they say, tort reforms give patients less recourse against medical errors that kill more people than car accidents, cancer or AIDS.
"Instead of marching on a courthouse, turning their backs on patients, they ought to be marching on the governor's office and joining with constituents to try to do something about skyrocketing insurance rates," said Craig McDonald, director of the lobbying group Texans for Public Justice.
In Texas and nationwide, the insurance industry has been rocked by the stock market slide, the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and lawsuit expenses.
Since 1999, seven of 17 malpractice insurance carriers serving Texas have either left or gone belly up, according to the Texas Department of Insurance.
"Over the last couple of years, we have been paying out more in claims than we have taken in in premiums," said Julie Pulliam of the National Insurance Association. "Claim costs have gone through the roof. The primary reason is the cost of lawsuits. That's why insurers are very supportive of tort reform."
I don't know the particulars of your case, and I can only imagine the depth of your frustration, but I have to point out the inconsistency here. What is your basis for asking 5 times the amount that you originally determined your husband's injury to be "worth"? If you originally determined your husband's injury to be worth, say, $200,000, then is it not "frivolous" to ask for $1,000,000 in court?
"Officer, look what they've done to my Beemer!" he whined.
"Geez! Could you be more materialistic?" asked the officer. "You're so worried about your stupid BMW, you didn't even notice that your left arm was ripped off!"
The lawyer finally noticed the bloody left shoulder where his arm once was. "Oh my gosh! Where's my Rolex???!!!"
If the left wing trial lawyers want health care, let them go to some socialist country.
This would bring a rapid halt to most of the doctors problems with trial lawyers's and their lawsuits.
Then, let Darwin clean out the human genome pool over the next 4 or 5 decades. With no medical treatment, this bunch of perverts would self destruct rapidly. No trial lawyers would be as healthy to this country as no Islamic terrorists left alive here or in the world. Hard to tell which group is more dangerous to America/Americans.
We need more thieving above-the-law sociopaths, oops I meant distinguished attorneys. Yeah that's the ticket.
Yes, we must bow down before the glory and wonderfulness of the mighty (and totally unregulated) lawyer industry.
As the shysters say in the Rio Grande Valley: "Justice? We don gots ta show you no stinken justice!"
Let me see if I can describe the setting to a Las Vegas person.
We have these things called 'trees', and they are tall, like buildings, but actually are alive!! They have a structure that is kind of like a bronchus and bronchioles, branching out more and more as you get distal.
And we have this stuff called 'grass' and it is like the dust you walk on, but it is kind of like green shag carpeting such as you would find in a 70s-type home.
It, too is alive, and, cool to the touch.
You would enjoy living in Indiana, no kidding. :-)
Westerner, it is terrible here. Horribly ugly landscape.
Mean, nasty people, worse than the bitchiest New Yorker.
I just live here because of the great malpractice premiums.
It has absolutely no cultural, natural, climactic, scientific, sporting, or commercial activities worth seeing or doing.
It is expensive, dirty, and crime-ridden.
Beware of Indiana.
One of those disposable cameras ought to do it.
Don't worry... they're all down here in Florida screwing up MY State.
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