Posted on 08/23/2009 12:20:14 PM PDT by ScaniaBoy
No, kinda like spending $200 per year on insurance and $24,000 per year on a therapist because you’re worried about the $200 you just spent on insurance.
parsy, who says its all in how you word it.
From what it seems to me, look at the huge costs when doctors get involved in health care that is paid by third parties.
parsy, who asks which is bigger, $2 billion or $240 billion
Of course, none of that would have to be spent if there were no crooks.
I agree, if doctors didn’t commit malpractice, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
parsy, who wishes doctors were perfect, too.
The guy who was instrumental in getting tort reform passed in Indiana later had a doctor who committed med malpractice, leaving the guy with lifelong complications. Oops, because of the tort reform that he was instrumental in getting pased, the guy couldn’t get nearly enough $$ to compensate him for his really serious loss. He’s now come out in the last couple of years speaking against tort reform and how it can really hurt the true victims.
Indiana insurance premiums aren’t cheaper for having passed tort reform, either.
You wouldn’t happen to have a link to that guy, would you?
parsy, who is gathering all the info he can.
Excerpt:
Crushed By My Own Reform By Frank Cornelius "In 1975, I helped persuade the Indiana Legislature to pass what was acclaimed as a pioneering reform of the medical malpractice laws: a $500,000 cap on damage awards, and elimination of all damages for pain and suffering. I argued successfully that such limits would reduce health care costs and encourage physicians to stay in Indiana — the same sort of arguments that not underpin the medical industry’s call for national malpractice reform.
Today, from my wheelchair, I rue that that accomplishment. Here is my story.
On February 22, 1989, I underwent routine arthroscopic surgery after injuring my left knee in a fall. The day I left the hospital, I experienced a great deal of pain and called the surgeon several times. He called back the next day and told my wife to get me a bedpan. He then left on a skiing trip. I sought out another surgeon, who immediately diagnosed my condition as a reflex sympathetic dystrophy — a degenerative nervous disorder brought on by trauma or infection, often during surgery. * * *
At the age of 49, I am told that I have less than two years to live.
My medical expenses and lost wages, projected to retirement if I should live that long, come to more than $5 million. Claims against the hospital and physical therapist have been settled for a total of $500,000 — the limit on damages for a single incident of malpractice. The Legislature has raised that cap to $750,000, and I may be able to collect some extra damages if I can sue those responsible for the August 1990 incident that nearly killed me. But apparently because of bureaucratic inertia, the state medical panel that certifies such claims has yet to act on mine.
The kicker, of course, is that I fought to enact the very law that limits my compensation. All my suffering might have been worthwhile, on some cosmic scale, if the law had accomplished its stated purpose. But it hasn’t."
People who are inclined to look for truth are able to look at the references we give and decide for themselves which is the more reliable source. I am happy to let them make that determination. Thus far, I see people on FR ridiculing your sources, and not ridiculing mine.
Personally, I KNOW that I have been advised by doctors to do tests and procedures that I have refused. Those tests would have added MORE than 10% to the cost of my treatment, with NO additional benefit. In addition, I know that I have in the past (before I got smarter than I am now) accepted treatments that were completely useless (Physical therapy, in my case) but were costing on the order of $5,000 per year, mostly paid by insurance. Until I recovered my integrity, I accepted those feel-good sessions without question. Now, I realize how stupid that was and how it hurt everyone. Until people are all understanding how much such "defensive" recommendations are costing us in increased insurance, probably as a result of their having to pay themselves, those costs are going to balloon.
Defensive medicine is not just having a blood test done when the doc knows it is ridiculous. (It was suggested to me 7 months ago that I get 5 tests done because my toes were done, though the blood test for diabetes came back "OK") Doc went through all the possible other items due to possibility that it just might be something other than "my toes were cold".
Defensive medicine encompasses all sorts of "thoughts or recommendations" a physician might mention to you as a result of some obscure symptom or other. He doesn't want to be liable, and judged that way, since he failed to pick out something obscure that may be the case 1:1000000 if the symptomology was a little off. Anyone who has a serious relationship with a doctor has been in this situation. So many have a "win the lottery" attitude and are just looking for some jackpot to come along. Many many cases are "settled" by insurance companies as a result, to the boon of the lawyers, and the bane of ME and YOU- not only because of our premiums, but the added cost of health care in general, and the loss of services of doctors who simply decide to "hang it up".
I add another document that supports my position that Medical Malpractice and Defensive Medicine costs on the order of 10% per year: Republican's lead plan, by Sen.Coburn. It discusses tort reform, and uses the 10% figure. By the way, when I have made claims that Malpractice defense costs $100 BILLION PER YEAR as well as 10%, please note I am low-balling that $100B. I could be making claims that it amounts to as much as $240B just as well.
Again, I state for everyone's information, that the Nader lovers and tort lovers documents that you continually have been touting are completely debunked, referenced in the post I made above. I really am amazed that you have not found a way to slink off with your tail between your legs after having been reproved so decisively. Michael Moore? Nader? What the heck are you thinking, man? Don't you think it important to choose your friends and advisers wisely?
Well stated. Everyone that knows any specialist in high risk fields personally (as I do) understands that the fear of malpractise lawsuits drives everything they do ... it is a huge hidden cost.
Heck, you ain’t got to stalk me. I’ll be glad to ping you. I will also be glad to read any links you send my way. The way I see it, the facts are what the facts are. If I am wrong about something, I want to know before I mislead others. I hope you feel the same way.
In the meantime, please read the reports at the links I provided.
Now for your swiching!
Go to your AEI link and scoot down to page 17, exhibit 10. There, Price Waterhouse says the cost of providing shoddy medical care is TWICE their estimated costs of defensive medicine in physician care.
In other words, even if their costs of tort and defensive medicine is right, at 10% —they then go on to state shoddy medical care is twice as costly, coming in at 20%.
I know that as interested as you in reducing runaway medical costs, you will now put twice as much effort into going after bad doctors and health care providers as you do attacking poor helpless trial lawyers.
FWIW, I do appreciate the effort you have put into researching this and providing links. Its beats the heck out of arguing with people who just hate lawyers.
You might want to check out this link, in a doctor type magazine, for a real good assessment of the overall problem.
http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/memag/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=141338
As far as the Naderite connection, like him or not, that link gives the numbers. No one else on “your” side is doing it. And, btw, A M Best is hardly a bad source for insurance information.
Did you actually read the whole article?
parsy, who will ping you if you like
Thank you so much. I think I will do a thread on this.
parsy, the ecstatic
Thou dost protest too much.
I know. Sometimes I get carried away. But it was a long answer to a long previous post. Other than that I try to be short and to the point.
parsy, who says, “Four score and seven years ago, our ......
Exactly what you said. And, I “heard” it first from you!
That is a damnable insult.
Plenty of OBs pay more in malpractice insurance than they take home. Rates are a quarter-mil a year in some locales. Also, it defies logic that 40% of obstetricians or 50% of neurosurgeons are practicing below the standard of care, but that's how many get sued every year in some places (where there are lots of greedy lawyers and lots of urban jurors with nothing better to do than stick it to the man.)
And before you give me the lame excuse that only 20% of malpractice lawsuits result in a plaintiff's verdict, I know that, and think that if a doctor were successful only 20% of the time it would be grounds for immediate suspension of his license.
I would like to see any lawyer who loses 50% of his cases in any 3-year period lose his license. He's obviously an incompetent shyster looking for a courthouse lottery win. They should not be permitted to hound blameless physicians like that.
I would also forbid any licensed lawyer from holding elective or appointed office in government. Too much of a conflict of interest.
I’m thinking parsy must be a closet member of the plaintiff’s bar...
What horse sh!t. RSD is never fatal. It's also a rare but recognized risk of any surgical procedure. There is no scientific evidence for any known technique, treatment, or precaution that can prevent it. There are some treatments that can mitigate it after the fact, but no patient should ever collect a nickel on a claim that their doctor "caused" RSD.
I say this man is a scoundrel, trying to loot the pockets of a blameless doctor.
Calling lawyers “shysters” is a damnable insult. Blaming lawyers for medical malpractice is a damnable insult.Failing to provide truthful information about “tort reform” is a damnable insult. Failing to take responsibility for committing malpractice is a damnable insult. I could go on, but you get the point.
Here are some numbers on the alleged ob/gyn shortage because of malpractice myth:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/obgyn_access_2007.pdf
parsy, who says it ain’t so much fun when someone is throwing stones at the greedy, irresponsible doctors, for a change, is it?
Ya’ll just got to ask. I’ll make it easy for you:
“Hoist by my own petard”
Frank Cornelius, and the Iowa Citizen Action Network
The following article, entitled “Crushed by My Own Reform” is the story of Frank Cornelius, an insurance lobbyist who got royally screwed by the tort reform he helped enact. The article appeared originally in the New York Times on October 7th, 1994.
Crushed By My Own Reform By Frank Cornelius
In 1975, I helped persuade the Indiana Legislature to pass what was acclaimed as a pioneering reform of the medical malpractice laws: a $500,000 cap on damage awards, and elimination of all damages for pain and suffering. I argued successfully that such limits would reduce health care costs and encourage physicians to stay in Indiana – the same sort of arguments that not underpin the medical industry’s call for national malpractice reform.
Today, from my wheelchair, I rue that that accomplishment. Here is my story.
On February 22, 1989, I underwent routine arthroscopic surgery after injuring my left knee in a fall. The day I left the hospital, I experienced a great deal of pain and called the surgeon several times. He called back the next day and told my wife to get me a bedpan. He then left on a skiing trip. I sought out another surgeon, who immediately diagnosed my condition as a reflex sympathetic dystrophy – a degenerative nervous disorder brought on by trauma or infection, often during surgery.
A few months later, when a physical therapist improperly red the instructions on a medical device, I received a tremendous current of electricity through my left leg. This seriously complicated my condition.
In August 1990, another physician proposed a medical procedure, but used the wrong instrument; that left me with several holes in the vena cava, the main vein from the legs to the heart. I would have to bled to death in my room if my wife had not come to see me that evening and called for help. As another physician tried to save my life, he punctured my left lung.
The cost of this cascading series of medical debacles is painful to tally:
I am confined to a wheelchair and need a respirator to keep breathing. I have not been able to work.
I have a continuous physical pain in my legs and feet, prompting my doctor to hook me up to an apparatus that drips morphine. My pain used to rate a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. Now it’s about a 4.
Twice, I have received last rites from my church.
My marriage is ending, and the emotional fallout on our five children has been difficult to witness, to say the least.
At the age of 49, I am told that I have less than two years to live.
My medical expenses and lost wages, projected to retirement if I should live that long, come to more than $5 million. Claims against the hospital and physical therapist have been settled for a total of $500,000 – the limit on damages for a single incident of malpractice. The Legislature has raised that cap to $750,000, and I may be able to college some extra damages if I can sue those responsible for the August 1990 incident the nearly killed me. But apparently because of bureaucratic inertia, the state medical panel that certifies such claims has yet to act on mine.
The kicker, of course, is that I fought to enact the very law that limits my compensation. All my suffering might have been worthwhile, on some cosmic scale, if the law had accomplished its stated purpose. But it hasn’t. (Emphasis added.)
Indiana’s health care costs increased 139.4 percent from 1980 to 1990 – just about the national average. The state ranked 32nd in per capita health spending in 1990 – the same as in 1980.
It is understandable that the damage cap has done nothing to curb health care spending; the two have almost nothing to do with each other. In 1992, the Congressional Budget Office reported that medical malpractice litigation accounted for less than 1 percent of total healthcare spending. I doubt that the percentage in Indiana is much different.
Make no mistake; damage caps are arbitrary, wholly disregarding the nature of the injury and the pain experience by the plaintiff. They make it harder to seek and recover compensation for medical injuries; extend unwarranted special protection to the medical industry; and remove the only effective deterrent to negligent medical care, since the medical profession has never done an effective job of disciplining negligent doctors.
Medical negligence cannot be reduced simply by restricting consumers’ legal rights. That will happen only when the medical industry begins to effectively police its own. I don’t expect to see that day. (Emphasis added.)
Sadly, Frank did not live to see that day and passed away. To me, the most telling part of this article is that tort reform legislation did nothing to decrease healthcare costs in the State of Indiana.
parsy, the helpful
Oh, and by the way, if you don’t believe me, and you don’t believe the victim, mebbe you’ll believe a doctor:
From the June 2009 New Yorker magazine, an article by Atul Gawande:
One night, I went to dinner with six McAllen doctors. All were what you would call bread-and-butter physicians: busy, full-time, private-practice doctors who work from seven in the morning to seven at night and sometimes later, their waiting rooms teeming and their desks stacked with medical charts to review.
Some were dubious when I told them that McAllen was the country’s most expensive place for health care. I gave them the spending data from Medicare. In 1992, in the McAllen market, the average cost per Medicare enrollee was $4,891, almost exactly the national average. But since then, year after year, McAllen’s health costs have grown faster than any other market in the country, ultimately soaring by more than ten thousand dollars per person.
“Maybe the service is better here,” the cardiologist suggested. People can be seen faster and get their tests more readily, he said.
Others were skeptical. “I don’t think that explains the costs he’s talking about,” the general surgeon said.
“It’s malpractice,” a family physician who had practiced here for thirty-three years said.
“McAllen is legal hell,” the cardiologist agreed. Doctors order unnecessary tests just to protect themselves, he said. Everyone thought the lawyers here were worse than elsewhere.
That explanation puzzled me. Several years ago, Texas passed a tough malpractice law that capped pain-and-suffering awards at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Didn’t lawsuits go down?
“Practically to zero,” the cardiologist admitted.
“Come on,” the general surgeon finally said. “We all know these arguments are bullshit. There is overutilization here, pure and simple.” Doctors, he said, were racking up charges with extra tests, services, and procedures.
The surgeon came to McAllen in the mid-nineties, and since then, he said, “the way to practice medicine has changed completely. Before, it was about how to do a good job. Now it is about ‘How much will you benefit?’ ”
Everyone agreed that something fundamental had changed since the days when health-care costs in McAllen were the same as those in El Paso and elsewhere. Yes, they had more technology. “But young doctors don’t think anymore,” the family physician said.
The surgeon gave me an example. General surgeons are often asked to see patients with pain from gallstones. If there aren’t any complications—and there usually aren’t—the pain goes away on its own or with pain medication. With instruction on eating a lower-fat diet, most patients experience no further difficulties. But some have recurrent episodes, and need surgery to remove their gallbladder.
Seeing a patient who has had uncomplicated, first-time gallstone pain requires some judgment. A surgeon has to provide reassurance (people are often scared and want to go straight to surgery), some education about gallstone disease and diet, perhaps a prescription for pain; in a few weeks, the surgeon might follow up. But increasingly, I was told, McAllen surgeons simply operate. The patient wasn’t going to moderate her diet, they tell themselves. The pain was just going to come back. And by operating they happen to make an extra seven hundred dollars.
I gave the doctors around the table a scenario. A forty-year-old woman comes in with chest pain after a fight with her husband. An EKG is normal. The chest pain goes away. She has no family history of heart disease. What did McAllen doctors do fifteen years ago?
Send her home, they said. Maybe get a stress test to confirm that there’s no issue, but even that might be overkill.
And today? Today, the cardiologist said, she would get a stress test, an echocardiogram, a mobile Holter monitor, and maybe even a cardiac catheterization.
“Oh, she’s definitely getting a cath,” the internist said, laughing grimly.
parsy, who thoughtfully provided the above just in case you were skeptical
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.