Frivolous lawsuits are ruining our economy and America?s legal crisis is putting employees out of work, raising consumer prices and driving down shareholder value. We need to address the country?s litigation explosion and make the legal system simpler, and fairer. Read about the priorities of Friends of the U.S. Chamber at http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/issues/index.cfm?ID=306 .
Hospital regulatory bodies need to be brought under control. The Joint Commission is out of control,and intrusive, grossly lowering health care effeciency.
Insurance is transferring risk. The transfer of risk from the consumer to another party for a fee. It is almost automatically an adversarial relationship between the consumer and the insurer.
Insurance complaints are primarily based upon insurance company's attempts to further reduce their contracted risk by questioning, debating, or denying procedures or billing rates.
Exacerbating this issue is insurance fraud which demands manhours, money, and resources to investigate and prosecute.
It could be argued that the lack of uniform procedures and processes across the insurance spectrum creates dissimilar results, and those dissimilar results are what creates consumers who are satisfied with their insurance and those who are absolutely dissatisfied.
Private insurance companies are not non-profit organizations, they must make a profit in order to satisfy their reason for being in business. In order to make a profit they must control costs, but should not be at the expense of not satisfying contracted terms of coverage.
Stupid system.///////////////////unless you aint got no money.
usually legal disputes between poorer folks are settled pretty quick, because the lawyers get on the phone and talk it out, quickly. There is no money to pump. Not so if you have assets. This is not the way . We spend too much time, too much money and too much energy with attorneys.
PAID by the HOUR ??? We are all being taken for a RIDE.
We truly need to limit what lawyers charge across the board. There should be a set fixed national price , say for a divorce, or a will, or other categories, not this stupid system of getting paid by the hour ! The longer it drags out, the more money they get. The incentive is therefore to mild your wallet and the system until some one cries uncle ! So many cases never get to court because the people go broke first. This is taking away our rights.
hamiltoningrate said, "... We truly need to limit what lawyers charge across the board. There should be a set fixed national price..." ---
No "free market" apostle with hamiltoningrate-- he knows what he likes and what he doesn't, principles completely aside.
With hamiltoningrate, price controls are now kosher. (Where was he during debate about Wall Street salaries and bonuses? Where is he when gas prices rise? Where is he when most of us cannot easily afford health insurance?)
Perhaps it would be just as fair to impose an hourly fee structure on the medical community?
As most of us already realize, so-called "tort reform" made egregious plaintiff awards vanishingly rare, which leaves only the group practices and hospitals still rolling in money.
Why does every major hospital have something under construction? Times must be truly hard for the health care business.
A forum poster said, "Tort reform is desparately needed in this country. It is too easy for someone to sue when they don't understand the underlying basis of medicine and hospital care..." ---
But a courtroom exists to establish that underlying basis. If it can be taught to you, it can be presented to others, as well.
Should people no longer have the right to sue for justice in medical cases, simply because you fear they may not agree with you?
In any event, the "tort reform" you suggest has nothing to do with proper understanding of the merits of a case. Its sole purpose is to isolate and limit the ability of a jury to decide what is just.
"Tort reform" is an effort to limit legal recourse for Americans who happen to be patients.
Put another way, if only technical practitioners have the facts and know the truth, how could they be held accountable under law for their actions?
Professional peers are already allowed in jury cases-- they are called expert witnesses.
Only those who are not satisfied with this approach seem to want a "tribunal", a closed-session adjudication similar, perhaps, to the disciplinary procedures of a medical association.
In other words, "We'll handle this in-house. The public need not inquire further."
This approach would place medical malpractice above the law.
A poster said, "any good doctor today who wants to make money should become a lawyer... there's a lot more money in figuring out what doctors do wrong rather than paying them to do right. ---
Do doctors need to be paid more to "do right"? This claim is false, and slanderous to doctors, in general.
As for theatrical moaning about a wave of medical malpractice suits, the poster already knows the AMA lobby went through state legislatures at least a decade ago in its campaign for what it called "tort reform".
The AMA lobby-- a group representing less than one-third of the 800,000 physicians practicing in this country-- buttonholed friendly, bribeable legislators to secure passage of tort limits (caps) on malpractice damages against physicians, group practices and hospitals.
Their action went well beyond reasonable self-defense. To understand exactly what the AMA and its patrons in the legislature actually did, the phrase "nullification by statute" applies. After the death by medical malpractice of a loved one, grieving family members rarely recover more than the cost of going to court.
Even today-- so successfully have the AMA and GOP legislatively stonewalled malpractice claims by patients-- there is not even a national system of posting names of doctors, alongside malpractice suits made against them.
The matter of malpractice is public record and should be posted as such. The mere posting of a claim is not the point, but to aid prospective patients in assessing the questions they must ask of particular physicians, physician groups and hospitals.
This is literally a matter of life and death. Today, unfortunately, it is easier to find consumer reviews of automobiles and paperback books.
Warning-- those who plan to enter surgery or any other serious treatment should keep in mind the smiling face of a specialist is no guarantee of competence or reasonable safety.
Again, only a publicly-posted track record of malpractice suits filed against a physician or hospital can work toward honesty and patient safety.
Thank the AMA and bribeable legislators for the fact we do not have such a system, now.
Thank you for making me laugh. The phrase "honesty and patient safety" seems to be your #1 priority. I've read about 5 posts by you, and all seem strangely propaganda-like against any sort of tort-reform. I'm finding it hard to believe you are not or do not work for a trial lawyer.
You use the AMA and bribeable legislatros interchangeably. In fact it is the trial lawyers who happen to be one of the largest campaign contributors to the Democratic party.
The funny thing is, research has shown that the longer you practice medicine, the higher your chance of being sued. That is clearly because every doctor is terrible and is out to hurt patients for money. Your national database of those being sued would drive patients towards speciialists that have the least amount of experience...those who have just graduated resdiency.
It is a well known understanding that every physician will be sued at some point in their career. I'm beginning to think all you see is dollar signs when you read this statement.
Your post on medical malpractice seminars is laughable ("PATIENTS AND FAMILIES BEWARE!!!"). Once again, if anyone were to follow your advice, they should refute anything a medical professional tells them as bs, mainly because they must have gone to a malpractice seminar. "Your loved one might not survive the night..." elicits "I'm sure they are fine. Don't worry, we're not planning on litigation...yet".
I think there is a reason malpractice lawyers don't take an oath to do no harm. You would be out of business.
The medical community for the last decade has been blitzed by little-publicized, traveling "legal seminars"-- these professing to help medical professionals avoid litigation.
As innocent as that sounds, some of the methods taught by the seminars are anything but defensive. They cause needless pain and suffering, and are based upon manipulation of patient expectations.
Here is how the methods work--
Suppose a patient and his family rush to the hospital for a critical procedure. They are beside themselves with anxiety, and need all the hope and reassurance possible. While providing emotional comfort seems an easy mission for staff, medical professionals are now told, "Not so fast!-- this is "bad medicine."
The attending physician or other managing professional is instructed to inform the patient's family with a limited or poor prognosis-- "I am sorry, but the outlook is not the best. We'll do what we can, of course, but it appears all four wheels have fallen off. It will be difficult."
What a blow to an anxious family! And what a failure of the oath to do no harm! At hearing such a report, family members have been known to become depressed or violently ill, as a result. But as the seminar tells medical professionals, this is ultimately all to the good.
They are given the following explanation--
"If you promise the moon, but deliver coal and ashes, you probably will be sued by angry relatives, regardless of the effort you made and difficulty of the case.
"If you promise little or nothing-- even advise of the worst-- but deliver something, anyway, and maybe even the sun and moon, combined, you will be hailed as a miracle worker. Even your fees will be received with gratitude."
Tort Reform won't cut the cost of Health-care in this country....the way to cut cost is to eliminate the "middleman" insurance companies who are taking 30% off of the top of our 3 trillion dollar health-care system for profit.
by brian1920 In Texas we have tort award caps and the malpractice insurance rates have fallen lowering the cost of health care. This is proven data and anybody can check it out.
Brian, point US to some sort of Internet verification that insurance rates have dropped in Texas due to tort reform. Liberals from Texas on board have posted the opposite. Or maybe Brian, you are really a fascist, therefore a liar, as all Republicons?
notsouthern point us to some internet verification to prove it didn't. Where is the proof from these liberals you're talking about that posted it. Just admit it, because he's from Texas you hate him. You are the fascist and a racist.
jsd330 said, "notsouthern point us to some internet verification to prove it didn't..." ---
jsd330, did you attend GOP Rhetoric 101?
Your challenge to notsouthern is not a logical defense of brian1920's proposition, "tort award caps and the malpractice insurance rates have fallen lowering the cost of health care".
By analogy, an argument ensues. Says one, "You are pregnant!"
Says the other, "I am not!"
Says the one, "Prove I am not!"
You are definitely a graduate of the Dichard Cheney School of Logic, which insists "absence of proof is not proof of absence."
By that same logic, it is not proof of anything, at all.
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Insurance complaints are primarily based upon insurance company's attempts to further reduce their contracted risk by questioning, debating, or denying procedures or billing rates.
Exacerbating this issue is insurance fraud which demands manhours, money, and resources to investigate and prosecute.
It could be argued that the lack of uniform procedures and processes across the insurance spectrum creates dissimilar results, and those dissimilar results are what creates consumers who are satisfied with their insurance and those who are absolutely dissatisfied.
Private insurance companies are not non-profit organizations, they must make a profit in order to satisfy their reason for being in business. In order to make a profit they must control costs, but should not be at the expense of not satisfying contracted terms of coverage.
usually legal disputes between poorer folks are settled pretty quick, because the lawyers get on the phone and talk it out, quickly. There is no money to pump. Not so if you have assets. This is not the way . We spend too much time, too much money and too much energy with attorneys.
We truly need to limit what lawyers charge across the board. There should be a set fixed national price , say for a divorce, or a will, or other categories, not this stupid system of getting paid by the hour ! The longer it drags out, the more money they get. The incentive is therefore to mild your wallet and the system until some one cries uncle ! So many cases never get to court because the people go broke first. This is taking away our rights.
hamiltoningrate said, "... We truly need to limit what lawyers charge across the board. There should be a set fixed national price..."
---
No "free market" apostle with hamiltoningrate-- he knows what he likes and what he doesn't, principles completely aside.
With hamiltoningrate, price controls are now kosher. (Where was he during debate about Wall Street salaries and bonuses? Where is he when gas prices rise? Where is he when most of us cannot easily afford health insurance?)
Perhaps it would be just as fair to impose an hourly fee structure on the medical community?
As most of us already realize, so-called "tort reform" made egregious plaintiff awards vanishingly rare, which leaves only the group practices and hospitals still rolling in money.
Why does every major hospital have something under construction? Times must be truly hard for the health care business.
Talk about being "taken for a ride".
A forum poster said, "Tort reform is desparately needed in this country. It is too easy for someone to sue when they don't understand the underlying basis of medicine and hospital care..."
---
But a courtroom exists to establish that underlying basis. If it can be taught to you, it can be presented to others, as well.
Should people no longer have the right to sue for justice in medical cases, simply because you fear they may not agree with you?
In any event, the "tort reform" you suggest has nothing to do with proper understanding of the merits of a case. Its sole purpose is to isolate and limit the ability of a jury to decide what is just.
"Tort reform" is an effort to limit legal recourse for Americans who happen to be patients.
Put another way, if only technical practitioners have the facts and know the truth, how could they be held accountable under law for their actions?
Professional peers are already allowed in jury cases-- they are called expert witnesses.
Only those who are not satisfied with this approach seem to want a "tribunal", a closed-session adjudication similar, perhaps, to the disciplinary procedures of a medical association.
In other words, "We'll handle this in-house. The public need not inquire further."
This approach would place medical malpractice above the law.
A poster said, "any good doctor today who wants to make money should become a lawyer... there's a lot more money in figuring out what doctors do wrong rather than paying them to do right.
---
Do doctors need to be paid more to "do right"? This claim is false, and slanderous to doctors, in general.
As for theatrical moaning about a wave of medical malpractice suits, the poster already knows the AMA lobby went through state legislatures at least a decade ago in its campaign for what it called "tort reform".
The AMA lobby-- a group representing less than one-third of the 800,000 physicians practicing in this country-- buttonholed friendly, bribeable legislators to secure passage of tort limits (caps) on malpractice damages against physicians, group practices and hospitals.
Their action went well beyond reasonable self-defense. To understand exactly what the AMA and its patrons in the legislature actually did, the phrase "nullification by statute" applies. After the death by medical malpractice of a loved one, grieving family members rarely recover more than the cost of going to court.
Even today-- so successfully have the AMA and GOP legislatively stonewalled malpractice claims by patients-- there is not even a national system of posting names of doctors, alongside malpractice suits made against them.
The matter of malpractice is public record and should be posted as such. The mere posting of a claim is not the point, but to aid prospective patients in assessing the questions they must ask of particular physicians, physician groups and hospitals.
This is literally a matter of life and death. Today, unfortunately, it is easier to find consumer reviews of automobiles and paperback books.
Warning-- those who plan to enter surgery or any other serious treatment should keep in mind the smiling face of a specialist is no guarantee of competence or reasonable safety.
Again, only a publicly-posted track record of malpractice suits filed against a physician or hospital can work toward honesty and patient safety.
Thank the AMA and bribeable legislators for the fact we do not have such a system, now.
You use the AMA and bribeable legislatros interchangeably. In fact it is the trial lawyers who happen to be one of the largest campaign contributors to the Democratic party.
The funny thing is, research has shown that the longer you practice medicine, the higher your chance of being sued. That is clearly because every doctor is terrible and is out to hurt patients for money. Your national database of those being sued would drive patients towards speciialists that have the least amount of experience...those who have just graduated resdiency.
It is a well known understanding that every physician will be sued at some point in their career. I'm beginning to think all you see is dollar signs when you read this statement.
Your post on medical malpractice seminars is laughable ("PATIENTS AND FAMILIES BEWARE!!!"). Once again, if anyone were to follow your advice, they should refute anything a medical professional tells them as bs, mainly because they must have gone to a malpractice seminar. "Your loved one might not survive the night..." elicits "I'm sure they are fine. Don't worry, we're not planning on litigation...yet".
I think there is a reason malpractice lawyers don't take an oath to do no harm. You would be out of business.
The medical community for the last decade has been blitzed by little-publicized, traveling "legal seminars"-- these professing to help medical professionals avoid litigation.
As innocent as that sounds, some of the methods taught by the seminars are anything but defensive. They cause needless pain and suffering, and are based upon manipulation of patient expectations.
Here is how the methods work--
Suppose a patient and his family rush to the hospital for a critical procedure. They are beside themselves with anxiety, and need all the hope and reassurance possible. While providing emotional comfort seems an easy mission for staff, medical professionals are now told, "Not so fast!-- this is "bad medicine."
The attending physician or other managing professional is instructed to inform the patient's family with a limited or poor prognosis-- "I am sorry, but the outlook is not the best. We'll do what we can, of course, but it appears all four wheels have fallen off. It will be difficult."
What a blow to an anxious family! And what a failure of the oath to do no harm! At hearing such a report, family members have been known to become depressed or violently ill, as a result. But as the seminar tells medical professionals, this is ultimately all to the good.
They are given the following explanation--
"If you promise the moon, but deliver coal and ashes, you probably will be sued by angry relatives, regardless of the effort you made and difficulty of the case.
"If you promise little or nothing-- even advise of the worst-- but deliver something, anyway, and maybe even the sun and moon, combined, you will be hailed as a miracle worker. Even your fees will be received with gratitude."
In Texas we have tort award caps and the malpractice insurance rates have fallen lowering the cost of health care. This is proven data and anybody can check it out.
Brian, point US to some sort of Internet verification that insurance rates have dropped in Texas due to tort reform. Liberals from Texas on board have posted the opposite. Or maybe Brian, you are really a fascist, therefore a liar, as all Republicons?
jsd330 said, "notsouthern point us to some internet verification to prove it didn't..."
---
jsd330, did you attend GOP Rhetoric 101?
Your challenge to notsouthern is not a logical defense of brian1920's proposition, "tort award caps and the malpractice insurance rates have fallen lowering the cost of health care".
By analogy, an argument ensues. Says one, "You are pregnant!"
Says the other, "I am not!"
Says the one, "Prove I am not!"
You are definitely a graduate of the Dichard Cheney School of Logic, which insists "absence of proof is not proof of absence."
By that same logic, it is not proof of anything, at all.