Posted on 06/24/2009 6:14:02 AM PDT by shortstop
I pick doctors over lawyers any day.
Not that I don’t value the law, or its role in our lives. And not that I’m prejudiced against its practitioners.
But in a pinch it’s far more important to have a doctor than a lawyer.
So I’m on the doctors’ side.
In this whole “tort reform” thing, the doctors are right and the lawyers are wrong. Basically, you’ve got life-saving angels on one side and blood-sucking leeches on the other.
It’s not that hard a call.
There is discussion in Washington, and in many state capitals, about protecting doctors and the practice of medicine from crazy lawsuits. A wild proliferation of such suits, and ridiculously high judgements, have pushed malpractice insurance premiums through the roof.
So high, in fact, that some physicians – especially those who deliver babies – simply can’t afford to buy insurance. Which means they can’t afford to practice medicine.
Which is a loss for everybody.
In some areas and for some doctors, premiums are easily more than $100,000 or $200,000 a year – even without a record of malpractice claims. And people wonder why medical care costs so much.
Incorrectly, some presume it’s the greed of doctors. But that’s typically not the case. Ironically, the high cost of health care is often driven by what happens in the courtroom, not the emergency room.
The cancer growing on American medicine – in addition to managed care – is liability law.
Packs of hungry lawyers have found a great way to get rich from the sweat of somebody else’s brow. You’ve seen their ads on TV and billboards. Every city has three or four of them. Their names are probably plastered on your phonebook cover.
They’re looking for greedy fools.
They’re looking, they hope, for you and me.
And they want to find some way some how to make a legal argument that someone else is responsible for the misfortune that comes into our lives. Everything is somebody’s fault, they figure, and they want somebody to pay.
Them mostly, but you, too. If there’s some left over.
And we have become such a greedy and “entitled” people that we fall right into their traps, whether we are at the plaintiff’s table or in the jury box. We somehow figure that astronomical amounts of money must be stolen by force of law from whatever company, person or profession we have decided to envy and consequently despise.
Enter the doctors.
We’ve been coached to hate doctors. They save our lives and bring us comfort, dedicating the flower of their lives to learning the skills necessary to help us, and yet we somehow spit on them. We covet the money they make yet will not work as hard as they do to make it for ourselves.
Enter the ambulance chasers.
An entire class of lawyers, disgracing their profession, wringing blood from the medical profession.
Because it doesn’t always work. The miracle of modern medicine is not a 100-percent thing. Sometimes even the best efforts are not enough and nature – with its sickness, suffering and death – wins out.
So somebody’s got to be sued.
Not because there is actual negligence or professional failure, but because some conniving shylock can manipulate a jury of the ignorant and the resentful into voting a big verdict.
So the number of lawyers increases while the number of doctors decreases.
Lawyers are enriched and society is despoiled.
It’s time to put a stop to that. It’s time to come to the defense of the people who put us back together after our accidents, and birth our babies, and mend our hearts, and stand watch with us when we die.
Certainly, some doctors are willfully negligent. But the number is tiny. They do not represent the vast majority of the medical profession.
The people who must be defended.
Here’s what we can do: Penalty caps on malpractice and liability suits.
Actual damages, yes, punitive damages, no. Time off work, yes, pain and suffering, no. When there is egregious failure, the party who has been wronged must be made good, not made rich.
We must stop seeing the medical profession as a money pot, a lottery to be won with the lawyer running the biggest ad. We must remember that doctors help us and lawyers don’t.
Another idea would be a cap on attorney’s fees and rates. In large settlements or verdicts the percentage given to the lawyers could be dramatically cut, which would undoubtedly slow the rush to sue.
And we must remember that the greed of lawyers is only an amplification of our own. The Judeo-Christian ethic frowns on suing people, and we would be better off if these money grabs were seen for the shameful deeds they are, instead of some entitlement.
The legal profession is rising and the medical profession is declining. One is a trade of contention and the other is a trade of healing. Sides are being chosen. And we are choosing the wrong side.
I pick doctors over lawyers any day.
So many lawyer jokes, so little bandwidth.
“Obama and Lawyers are Wrong”.
I agreed and stopped reading there. :)
Doctors, nurses, other healthcare professionals including the orderlys and cafeteria workers at the hospital are far more important workers than any trial lawyer.
Doctors should be protected to the degree that there are no guarantees in life and that no doctor should be punished for an honest diagnosis. However the ability of the public to go after incompetent and careless doctors must be maintained. A tough line to follow since the the trial lawyers and the AMA want two entirely different things and the public loses in both cases.
That's why Obama & Co are working so hard to get doctors under their thumbs.
Doctors actually know how to do things, like fix broken bones, deliver babies, and perform brain surgery. Lawyers know how to talk, argue, and split hairs.
That said, there is still a warm place in my heart for all FR lawyers.
I agree. Actual malpractice occurs and legal remedies should be available. While capping awards might be a good idea, the root cause is abuse of the system.
The cure is obvious: “The English Rule”. In the British legal system the plaintiff in a losing civil case must pay the defendant’s legal costs. That would take all the fun out of frivilous lawsuits and lead to a lot more out of court settlements.
Wanna make a tort lawyer go apoleptic? Say the words “English Rule”.
Medical care is expensive for the same reason ladders are expensive.
What’s the difference between a mosquito and a lawyer? One is a blood-sucking parasite, the other is an insect...
When you die, the prostitute will stop screwing you.
This is really old news, but no less accurate: malpractice premiums drive up what docs have to charge. When somebody else’s premiums come to twice what I make a year, there’s something wrong. As a former hospital attorney and med mal defense lawyer, I can only say that for every plaintiff’s malpractice lawyer, there’s a defense attorney working for an hourly fee, NOT a percentage.
Colonel, USAFR
“That said, there is still a warm place in my heart for all FR lawyers. “
Nice save there, free!
Colonel, USAFR
Until the AMA is willing to shed its rotten fruit, the need for some sort of legal action against malpractice is justified. There are many physicians who should have their licenses revoked. The medical community shields them, like the Blue Line, for reasons I could never understand.
Tort reform should go hand in hand with reform for physician license review and renewal.
Ironically, the lawyers foul that up, too. In any community, the professionals know who the bad actors are, and would actually make moves to restrict them...except that they get sued if they try.
We're all slaves to the lawyers. O is a lawyer.
There is a huge element of business risk associated in tort law already, especially medical malpractice. In order to be taken seriously and secure an out-of-court settlement, a plaintiff’s lawyer must retain expert witnesses, and have reports generated. This is the very minimum. Depositions, request of documents and records, etc., are also likely necessary. This could easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars of costs right off the bat. For this reason this type of law is prohibiitive to most practitioners.
Articles like this sound good in principle, but if you examine the truth of these types of cases, you see most of it is populist demagoguery devised by the real benefactors of tort reform—insurance companies.
Answer: Tort Reform - Loser Pays.
Next question.
Agree with every word of this article. And it doesn’t even touch on the astronomical cost to the system incurred by doctors practicing defensive medicine in order to not get sued.
“Answer: Tort Reform - Loser Pays.
Next question.”
Correct. Forget the stupid cap on damages. Loser pays is the most effective way to stop frivilous suits. If they are not frivolous, then the award should be based on the evidence, not lobbying by the insurance company.
Why not apply all punitive damages awards to to the health costs borne by the government.
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