Posted on 04/01/2007 9:06:42 AM PDT by shrinkermd
...There are other, more serious costs and not just in health care, according to “Jackpot Justice: The True Cost of America’s Tort System,” a new study from the conservative Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. The study is the most comprehensive ever done on the direct and indirect costs of allowing personal liability lawyers virtual free rein in our courts in recent decades, according to the PRI. Among the other health care costs calculated by the PRI are an estimated 3.4 million people who can’t get insurance because of excessive premiums and, worst of all, 114,000 people who “would be alive and working today, but are not due to inefficiencies in the tort system over the last two decades” that delayed critically needed new drugs and treatments.
Overall, tort abuse costs the American people $865 billion a year, or $2.4 billion 365 days a year. That’s 27 times as much as the federal government spends protecting Americans from terrorists each year, 30 times what the National Institutes for Health spends annually researching cures for deadly diseases and 13 times the amount devoted to school aid by the Education Department. The losses include 51,000 jobs destroyed by asbestos-related litigation alone, plus the $559 million in pensions those workers would have received. Then there is the $684 billion in lost shareholder value and 367 billion in lost product sales due to lowered research investment.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
bookmark for later research
Crooked Malpractice Shyster John Edwards alone made tens of millions with his phony cerebral palsy lawsuits.
The rate of CP is completely unchanged in North Carolina (1%), but Edwards forced the states Caesarian Section rate from 8% to 22% of all births, at vast cost for unnecessary car3, needless tests, vastly increased malpractce insurance and increased trauma to mothers and babies.
Crooked Malpractice Shyster John Edwards alone made tens of millions with his phony cerebral palsy lawsuits.
The rate of CP is completely unchanged in North Carolina (1%), but Edwards forced the states Caesarian Section rate from 8% to 22% of all births, at vast cost for unnecessary care, needless tests, vastly increased malpractce insurance and increased trauma to mothers and babies.
How would you like to be Edward's wife's doctor?
If you curtail the damages awards, what you will really be accomplishing is encouraging the insurer to frustrate the person who has truly been damaged from being compensated. what they are attempting to do is create a situation where the insurer can increase the cost of seeking the award to such a level as to make it fiscally impossible for one who was damaged to pursue his claim.
The remaining insurers are typically physican-self insurance companies, that don't make a profit. You are either colossally misinformed or something far worse.
Most of the abuse of the Torts system is for the small claims. Its cheaper for the hospital to pay out $3K to settle a BS claim than it is to litigate it. When you get into mulit-million dollar wrongful death cases the plaintiff has a pretty tough job of proving actual negligence in most cases.
The real variable in Torts awards is the jury. In some places, the desire to punish the wealthy is the motivator. In a case in Knoxville not too long ago that I know about, a clear cut case where the defendent was probably criminally negligent was found for the defendant because one juror didn't care what the defendant did, because it was god's will that the plaintiff died.
...There are other, more serious costs and not just in health care, according to “Jackpot Justice: The True Cost of America’s Tort System,” a new study from the conservative Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. The study is the most comprehensive ever done on the direct and indirect costs of allowing personal liability lawyers virtual free rein in our courts in recent decades, according to the PRI. Among the other health care costs calculated by the PRI are an estimated 3.4 million people who can’t get insurance because of excessive premiums and, worst of all, 114,000 people who “would be alive and working today, but are not due to inefficiencies in the tort system over the last two decades” that delayed critically needed new drugs and treatments.
Overall, tort abuse costs the American people $865 billion a year, or $2.4 billion 365 days a year. That’s 27 times as much as the federal government spends protecting Americans from terrorists each year, 30 times what the National Institutes for Health spends annually researching cures for deadly diseases and 13 times the amount devoted to school aid by the Education Department. The losses include 51,000 jobs destroyed by asbestos-related litigation alone, plus the $559 million in pensions those workers would have received. Then there is the $684 billion in lost shareholder value and 367 billion in lost product sales due to lowered research investment.
jdub, I can only assume you are an attorney. Most doctors have been sued for malpractice, awards are out of control, and in most cases jury awards exceed coverage limits. I have limited the scope of my practice to limit my liability exposure, as have most physicians. Twice I have been called into an operating room emergently to save the life of a patient dying from a complication I had nothing to do with, and was sued both times, despite successful and uneventful recoveries. Makes me think twice about responding to such calls.
The solution to the malpractice problem is twofold: loser pays, and expert witness reform. Lets prosecute this "expert witness" whores and the plaintiff attorneys that lie their a$$ off for money. We don't need caps on awards, just a level playing field. As it is now the jackals have nothing to lose when they sue everybody in sight.
The insurers are making all of the money. I am insured by a mutual corporation, as are most of the doctors in my state. So the "rich insurers" line is garbage. Malpractice insurers have determined that there are only two factors that determine a physician's risk of being sued - speciality and zip code. If you are a doctor that takes care of very sick patients and are in a plaintiff-friendly jurisdiction, you are screwed. Every neurosurgeon in Dade County, Florida has been sued, on average three times. Every neurosurgeon in Washington, D.C. has been sued. And if you know any neurosurgeons, they are the most competent group of physicians you will ever run across. They just happen to treat patients who often end up with severe disability, despite their best efforts.
In your case, where you were sued when you performed appropriate services, was the case pursued to judgment, did your insurer settle, or did the plaintiff non-suit you before or during trial?
There would be benefits to a loser pays system, but there will be costs too. Those with valid claims will be afraid to submit them to the whim of a jury when the result may be that not only were they wrongly damaged, but in trying to recover their damages they end up in debt to the person who wronged them for the rest of their life.
On expert witnesses, I am in total agreement. A whore that one day will testify X is the undeniable truth, and the next that X could not possibly be the truth shouldnt be a trusted source of information.
Don't worry, most likely when there is a quasi single payer plan there will develop a "Worker's Comp" form of redress for medical errors. Without Worker's Compensation no one could hire anyone. Million dollar law suits would wipe out small business.
As you know, on the job illnesses, injuries and deaths are easily and promptly handled in most states by paying attorneys for the claimant and having benefits defined in advance. Physicians could pay their "workers comp-like" premiums to some state agency, or better yet fees would be assessed per procedure for some high risk specialties.
The trial lawyers will fight it, but the alternative will be no one willing to take on patients at risk for bad outcomes. Obstetricians, Neurosurgeons, and orthopods are all endangered species. Sometimes the cause is nonfeasance, malfeasance or misfeasance; however, there is a certain, predictable bad outcome of one sort or another with many surgical procedures. In spite of this juries practice "bootleg humanitarianism" and give give outrageous awards with little or no cause.
One of the cases my attorney filed for summary judgement and I was dismissed by the judge, the other I was dismissed following depositions, not exactly sure of the details.
As far as loser pays goes, I think somebody ought to be darn sure they have a case before they put anybody through the ringer. Nobody seems to care that the days and sometimes weeks a doctor has to take time away from his practice to defend himself in these frivolous cases will never be make up to him. Treating doctors like meaningless parts of this hunt for cash comes with a price... soon there won't be anybody taking tough cases
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.