Besides Pennsyvania, West Virginia (#49) and Mississippi (#50) are the poorest, most corrupt, and most 3rd World of all 50 states, yet have many of the richest lawyers. Mississippi judges get huge "loans" and oceanfront condos from the crooked trial lawyers. The attorney industry (read democrat party) basically runs both states as their medieval fiefdoms. (see linked newspaper articles at www.Overlawyered.com )
The trauma care, emergency surgical, and obstetrical physicians in all 3 states (plus Clark County, Nevada---Las Vegas) are being driven out of business due to massive malpractice premiums they cannot afford. There is no meaningful trauma care in most of both states. The obstetricians in particular have been run out of town by the lawyer industry, becoming economic refugees to other states less benighted than the pathetic, corrupt West Virginia and Mississippi backwaters. Healthcare in WV and 'Ol Miss (already the worst of all 50 states) is detreriorating rapidly due to the multi-millionire greed of the shysters.
The dirty little secret of medical liability insurance is that only 30% of the premiums go to (allegedly) injured plaintiffs. The trial lawyers get their 30-40% of course. But the costs of the DEFENSE attorneys is equal to the payouts to the plaintiffs attorneys!!
God forbid the pathetic excuses for governors in Pennsylvania, WV, and Mississippi would enact authentic tort reform to lower the income of their lawyer buddies.
The democrats will enrich themselves (or at least their trial lawyer constituency), destroy the trauma and obstetrical system, and have the SHAMELESS gall to demand a federal takeover and universal health system to "correct" the non-functional, lawyer-ravaged system. I am absoluely convinced this will be lawyer-politician Hillary's agenda when the time comes.
I think that the trial lawyers are only too happy to be a part of the democrat effort to destroy the health care system, so that the democrats will then trot themselves out of the shadows to claim to be saviors!. I strongly believe that national health care will be the cornerstone to a Hillary Clinton campaign!!
One maddening thing (for the docs) about the med malpractice industry is that the suits and payouts generally bear no relationship to competence. Thus doctors who agree see the most high risk (sickest) patients are the most likely to be sued. Very sick patients are more likely to have adverse outcomes. Another example is the gold mine (for crooked lawyers) who make mega-bucks off of neurosurgeons (brain injury almost always has some residual brain damage, by definition) and obstetricans (congenital blameless birth defects equals lawyer yachts and French Riviera condos).
My recommendations for this problem and for the unregulated lawyer plague that damages all of our lives in so many ways? The world would be a better place with:
1) Loser Pays.
2) Massive tort reform on a unprecedented level
3) Widespread empowerment of paralegals for independent practice
4) An end to punitive damages.
5) An end to bogus class action suits.
6) Outlawing contingency fees.
7) Lawyers forbidden from running from office. They are agents of the judiciary.
8) Most important: a total disempowerment of the bar associations. Lawyer discipline by true consumer control. Like any other industry.
More proof of the continued destruction of all that's good by trial lawyers.
The doctors are going to have to get downright mean about this or the politicians will keep slithering around like the snakes they are. To those who say people would die under that scenario, I say they will die anyway as doctor shortages worsen because of the problem.
The future of modern medicine is on the line. The docs are going to have to offer a simple choice to the people of this country - Modern health care or no modern health care. I'll bet the millions of legal junkies in this country wouldn't let the tort problem threaten the loss of their supply of mood-elevating drugs. Prescription-waving Americans will storm the state legislatures for tort reform before their pills run out.
It won't work .. not till you do something about all the bad lawsuits being filed