Posted on 05/07/2010 11:03:10 AM PDT by NevadaPolicyResearchInstitute
If there is one thing we should all be able to agree about health care it's this health care is an enormously complicated issue. (One of many reasons that I think the government needs to stay far away from health care, by the way).
Rising health care costs is also a complicated issue, but that doesn't mean you can't identify some of the main drivers of increased health care costs.
Right now in Las Vegas, you can see for yourself one of those drivers out of control liability lawsuits.
A lawyer for a Henderson man infected with hepatitis C suggested Thursday that two drug companies should pay more than $1 billion for failing to take steps that could have prevented Southern Nevada's hepatitis C outbreak.And where would that $1 billion come from? Anyone who would ever buy one of Teva's or Baxter's (the drug companies being sued) future products. Also from Teva's and Baxter's employees and investors.During the punitive damages stage of the first outbreak-related civil trial, Robert Eglet told the jury that Teva Parenteral Medicine and Baxter Healthcare Services should pay for continuing to make and sell large vials of the sedative propofol to endoscopy centers despite previous outbreaks being linked to the drug.
This verdict and the scores of similiar ones over the past few decades have also increase health care costs. Insurance costs will increase for everyone. Companies will have to jump through additional hurdles to try and shield themselves from future lawsuits. (Not necessarily a bad thing if Teva or Baxter had done something wrong, but that's not the case here as I'll discuss below.)
Also verdicts like this will lead to less investment in current and new drugs. Here's why: In the free market system profits and costs send important signals to investors and companies. If profits are high, both will move some of their limited resources into the profitable areas. This spurs innovation and competition, which in the long run lowers drug prices for the consumer. Investors and businesses will then move into more profitable areas, but the lower drug prices will remain.
What's happening here is exactly the opposite. These companies will be losing money, which will lower their profits. Lower profits send the signal that demand is already being met and discourage investment from investors and businesses. But in this case the signal is distorted. Profits are lowered, not because that's not demand, but by lawsuits that arbitrarily take away profits. The end result is the same though decreased investment.
Now everyone feels terrible for the hepatitis victims, but you shouldn't help the victims by punishing someone or something successful who didn't harm the victims.
In case you haven't been following the details of this case, the drug companies' crime was to not know that doctor they sold their medicine to was grossly negligent. Chuck Muth sums it up well.
A licensed, highly-trained professional doctor in Las Vegas reportedly told his licensed, highly-trained professional nurses to reuse syringes to save money, ultimately and not surprisingly resulting in patients who were injected with the dirty needles becoming infected with Hepatitis C.Exit question: Using this standard couldn't someone sue the public school system (aka the taxpayers), the next time someone commits accounting fraud? After all if they hadn't learned mathThe victims, naturally and rightfully, sued. And as per the industrys standard operating procedure, the lawyers involved decided to include in their lawsuit two of the manufacturers of the drug which was injected into the patients using the dirty needles by the dirty nurses doing the bidding of the dirty doctor because .well, for the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks:
Thats where the money is.
The mind-boggling claim by the victims lawyers is that the drug companies failed to sufficiently warn highly-trained professional doctors and highly-trained professional nurses that they shouldnt inject drugs into patients using syringes which had previously been used. Duh.
Even more amazingly, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the judge in the case, Jessie Walsh, ruled at the start of the trial that the drug companies were not allowed to use the dirty doctor defense and blame the infection on doctors and nurses misusing the drug.
What the .? This is like suing General Motors because someone drove their Chevy to the levy drunk and hit someone.
Tort reform was not a part of Obamacare specifically BECAUSE trial lawyer billionaires are top donors to the DNC in several states including Texas.
State of Nevada closed down this clinic—but they should have been more clear as to the reasons why.
I am stunned that a jury would think that re-using needles & syringes is OK, and that the frug companies are to blame.
This won’t get far in the appeals court, I Hope.
But the legal costs are there no matter what.
This ‘patient’ should have his head examined.
If I recall, this was explicitly stated by Howard Dean, former DNC chairman.
Enormously complicated?
Only because the state is intruding into areas which it has no business being.
Should be a clure.
:)
TMc
There are two separate ways to address the issue.
1. Correct the jury system.
2. Deny access of the injured to legal remedies or limit their remedies.
First, what do you do when all the jurors are morons? What do you do when the majority of the jury pool feels like everyone is entitled to free stuff and that if someone gets injured, big companies should pay lots of money, even when the big companies aren’t at fault? Change the jury system so that medical issues are resolved the way tax issues are in many states: by a special court that only deals with those issues. The problem is that we have set up our system so that everyone has the right to a trial by jury. As long as there are stupid people, there will be stupid jurors resulting in stupid decisions. However, before we look to replace it, we’d have to ask if the new system would actually result in fewer bad decisions than the current one.
Second, you can deny people access to the courts or limit their damages. But what do you limit the damages to? How do you make a system that costs bad doctors their jobs? If you are going to deny people access to the courts, how will take care of the bad doctors? Why, through government regulations, of course.
Limiting damages is fine, but I personally know of two personal injury cases, both involving cavalier doctors treating children, where the doctors should have been shot and all their belongings given to the victims. If you limit the damages by law so that nothing can be considered except an arbitrary number, you are removing responsibility from the doctor/perpetrator.
In my opinion, this is a complicated issue that will take a lot of thought and a number of changes. I don’t think the answer is as simple as “complete, comprehensive tort reform.” The greatly injured will end up with less than they deserve and the less injured will end up with more, all averaged out to some arbitrary number set by the state. Tort reform with real legal reform seems more reasonable to me.
WTF?!!I don’t get it...if the licensing authority,the State of Nevada, can’t determine if there exist professional performance problems among its own licensees.....how the heck can Baxter legally determine this?!!!
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.