Advanced Ambulance Chasing

The lawsuit industry makes up about six percent of America’s GDP and costs thirty times more than what the NIH spends annually on cures for deadly diseases, said Lawrence J. McQuillan at a recent Heritage Foundation event.

McQuillan, the director of Business and Economic Studies at the Pacific Research Institute, has dedicated countless hours to the study of tort and the potential effects of tort reform on the American economy (many of his results can be found in the PRI publication “Jackpot Justice: The True Cost of America’s Tort System”).

Indirect costs of tort, McQuillan said at the panel on tort reform, cost Americans over $865 billion annually. This puts what he terms “the lawsuit industry” at the same size as the restaurant and food service industry.

McQuillan pointed out that 93 percent of physicians practice defensive medicine, conducting extra tests on patients in the hopes of preventing future lawsuits. Twenty-five percent of all procedures now performed on patients are unnecessary, and only performed in the first place to avoid potential lawsuits. According to McQuillan, defensive medicine has a true cost of about $124 billion annually, and this is a cost that regular Americans pay every year with their insurance. McQuillan estimated that 3.4 million Americans are unable to afford insurance just because of the cost of defensive medicine. Clearly, in light of the recent health care debates, this is a crucial statistic for both policymakers and voters to understand....

Dude, there is always some twerp out there who works for a “conservative” think tank that is carping about lawyers. Their fees come from businesses who do not like the idea of their holy, sacred selves having to stand in front of 12 ordinary Americans and be held accountable for their actions. The $865 billion number is crap. It has been debunked as crap.

I have actually read the 68(?) page article from whence it comes and it is verily and truly crap. I used to be an accountant and now work in the legal field so I have a lot of knowledge about the particular topic, and was quite able to follow the tortured logic contained therein. It is crap.

If you want to know about “torts” may I suggest you go and talk to a lawyer or two and ask them to tell you what really goes on. There are plenty of websites where you can find the info. You might want to start with the infamous McDonalds coffee lawsuit.

Please feel free to let me know if I can be of any help to you.

parsy, who says the article is crap

“McQuillan pointed out that 93 percent of physicians practice defensive medicine, conducting extra tests on patients in the hopes of preventing future lawsuits.”

This says it all!

Is that you Ralph Nader — agent at large for the trial lawyers — are are you one of the thousands of slimy tort lawyers who are parasites on the body of America and are basically the scum of the earth?

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