It's Time For Caps On Malpractice Awards

County Press ^ | By Joseph Armao, M.D.

[Tribune7]

Attorneys John Gallagher and Gregory Palumbo evidently belong to the school of thought that believes if a half-truth is repeated often enough, it gains in credibility. How else can they claim,, in a recent article in a local newspaper, that practicing physicians are not leaving the state when everyone else knows it to be fact? To boost their tally of physicians in the state, they use residents working in hospitals, industrial physicians and those in full-time research. These physicians have licenses, but do not treat the general public.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of resident physicians in hospitals will be leaving Pennsylvania upon completion of their training.

[tvn]

Loser Pays Costs: The Alternate to Tort Law Reform

If courts rule that losing litigants must pay costs of winning party as is done in England, it can reasonably be expected that the number of lawsuits will drop precipitously. This would eliminate the need to proceed with tort law reform.

[zip]

Capping the fee at the lesser of 20% or an hourly billing at the prevailing rate for the locality would reduce the incentive to pursue cases that are marginal,

Excellent idea. BTW, I like your tagline.

[Rockingham]

What is causing the medical malpractice crisis? Are plaintiff's lawyers solely at fault in perverting the legal system, or does the legal system itself also have deficiencies that need to be remedied?

The medical malpractice issue is in considerable part misconceived because solutions focused on it will be a thumb on the scale for the sake of doctors but will not address fundamental dysfunctions in the American legal system: its tendencies toward delay and error and accommodation of perjury; its susceptibility to bias, poor training, incompetence, and dishonesty by judges and profitable manipulation by lawyers; and an extreme preference for balancing tests and discretion that are ready sources of complexity, error, and chicanery.

Lawyers know of and commonly discuss these problems and experiences among themselves but rarely go public for fear of professional consequences and lack of definitive proof. Medical malpractice reforms are the equivalent of treating acne while the patient's cancer is undiscussed and untreated. The patient may look better and fell better, but no one in the know will regard him as healthy.

[Tribune7]

The good people of Pennsylvania have chosen to give vast wealth to the lawyer industry, and they clearly do not want quality or accessible health care.

It was also true in Texas, Mississippi and even California, and the good people went ahead in those places and changed things. Are you saying we Pennsylvanians don't have that right? Wouldn't the first step be describing and publicizing that situation?

[Tribune7]

I've been pondering something along the lines of limiting to actual, measurable damage but including the plantiff's time and lawyer fees in that calculation. This way, if the defendent admits fault right off a lot of cost will be avoided. If not the plantiff and his lawyer can be tacking on $400 an hour to the settlement.

Also, we have to do a much, much better job of weeding out frivilous suits. If the defendent should win he should have the opportunity to sue the plantiff and his lawyer to collect expenses for his defense. A separate trial would be required. If the decision for the defendent was a near thing, he might want to drop things and walk away.

[Temple Owl]

Cap 'em Dano!

[Tribune7]

LOL

[BlazingArizona]

Yes, I'd like to see a jury of 12 for malpractice. Have them use the same evidence rules as a crimunal case.. If only a majority of them vote for the plaintiff then let a cap apply..say 350,000...but if all 12 go for the plaintiff then remove the low cap and use a much larger cap of say 10 million.

I would go further than this. If you want to win a civil suit, of any kind whatever, you would have to unanimously convince a jury of 12 that you had a valid case "beyond all reasonable doubt". Such a revision would cause most of the trial lawyers to quit the field and go find real jobs. The ones who remained would make sure the client had a helium-tight case before going to trial.

[secretagent]

1. Take the regulating of Doctors away from Doctors.

Take the licensing of doctors away from the State. Voluntary and competing guilds would arise, and medical technique would advance more rapidly.

[Jim Noble]

It's time for verdict reform.

I don't care how much they award if they get the fault part right.

When that's wrong (and it often is), five cents is too much.

[Tribune7]

Voluntary and competing guilds would arise, and medical technique would advance more rapidly.

I agree.

[secretagent]

How about this one:

Adults would have the right to sign a binding contract waiving all rights to damages in the case of an accident, thus getting the lowest cost for the medical service.

Or they could pay premiums for whatever coverage they want. The patient would choose the damages cap.

[JSteff]

"Also, it takes many years of training and numerous certifications before one qualifies to practice medicine. How can someone not qualified to practice, regulate the practice?"

You immediately jumped to saying that I was asking for GOVERNMENT to regulate the doctors making somewhat a leap that I wanted untrained bureaucrats to make the decision.

I never said to take it away from medical professionals... not anywhere. It would take a branch of government, but it could be managed and operationally staffed primarily by nurses. Who do you think does most of the work in our hospitals now? Besides they have just enough professional animosity to make it make it work without becoming another AMA (a private doctor controlled organization by the way)!)

That is the cool thing about education and many examples exist of those who know enough to work above their immediate station in life.

Look at Nuclear weapons regulators. None of them ever set off a nuke bomb but they are learned persons who can and do make decisions about nuclear weapons regulating based on the training in the field. Are they not qualified because of the fact they were largely never generals?

For another example. What about the people who are NOT doctors but decide everything about whether a medical procedure will be paid for? Generally it is nurses, trained medical professionals who make decisions on surgical procedures they are not license to actually perform, who make those sort of decisions.

Doctors would obviously still be involved. I just don't want them or their own organizations (clubs like the AMA) regulating themselves.

[Tribune7]

Adults would have the right to sign a binding contract waiving all rights to damages in the case of an accident, thus getting the lowest cost for the medical service.

Pa. has something like that for automobile insurance.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

"Drugs and Doctors May be the Leading Cause of Death in U.S."
http://www.mercola.com/2003/jan/15/doctors_drugs.htm

"Death by Medicine"
http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar2004_awsi_death_01.htm
By Gary Null, PhD; Carolyn Dean MD, ND; Martin Feldman, MD; Debora Rasio, MD; and Dorothy Smith, PhD

"Something is wrong when regulatory agencies pretend that vitamins are dangerous, yet ignore published statistics showing that government-sanctioned medicine is the real hazard.

Until now, Life Extension could cite only isolated statistics to make its case about the dangers of conventional medicine. No one had ever analyzed and combined ALL of the published literature dealing with injuries and deaths caused by government-protected medicine. That has now changed.

A group of researchers meticulously reviewed the statistical evidence and their findings are absolutely shocking.4 These researchers have authored a paper titled “Death by Medicine” that presents compelling evidence that today’s system frequently causes more harm than good.

This fully referenced report shows the number of people having in-hospital, adverse reactions to prescribed drugs to be 2.2 million per year. The number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections is 20 million per year. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million per year. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million per year.

The most stunning statistic, however, is that the total number of deaths caused by conventional medicine is an astounding 783,936 per year. It is now evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the US. (By contrast, the number of deaths attributable to heart disease in 2001 was 699,697, while the number of deaths attributable to cancer was 553,251.5)"

When we look at the statistics and the facts, we need to talk about Medicine in this country, not just in Pennsylvania. The system is broken. It is no longer just about tort reform, it is time we reformed the system that continues the torts, IMO.

I have been an outspoken critic regarding the likes of John Edwards, Esq and their getting rich off their ability to create "pseudo torts" against doctors and hospitals in the court room. Their getting rich off this does not benefit the "torted" patients.

However, conventional medicine (this includes, the FDA, AMA, drug companies, doctors, hospitals) has been getting away with greedy carelessness that approaches murder. Look at Vioxx, Bextra, Celebrex. And now the FDA finally admits that ALL anti-inflammatories may kill you.

So, do we need tort reform that makes it even easier on the pocketbooks of conventional medicine, or do we need to fix this broken system?

Tort reform is essential in many areas, not just in medical malpractice situations. Most of us would likely agree. However, we should insist that tort reform go hand in hand with fixing the broken system.

I have included URL's and recommend them as worthwhile reading. Fire away with your comments.

[JSteff]

The problem there would be eventually one guild would end up on top then we are back to the AMA. The government would still be needed for the initial and followup testing and certification.

Even if the government contracted those out it would be better than fox's controlling access to the hen house.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

"The FDA also needs some house cleaning and needs to play a more active role in the testing and certification of drugs and treatments."

See my post #35. The FDA is hand-in-hand a part of the problem, as are respective state medical licensing boards. We need to allow serious competition. The FDA and state boards kill anything that does not benefit drug companies or conventional medicine.

As long as the existing system continues there will never be a cure for cancer, aids etc. Cancer research is a 100 billion dollar a year industry. Find a cure, put that 100 billion dollar industry into total depression. And so on. I believe there have been cures for cancer. Those who found them wound up in prison or fled to Mexico.

Conventional medicine kills cancer patients: one study shows that a woman diagnosed with breast cancer who does nothing has a life expectancy of 12 years. A woman who gives into the conventional medicine protocol of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation treatments has a life expectancy of 3 years.

[tjg]

" You immediately jumped to saying that I was asking for GOVERNMENT to regulate the doctors....."

No, I wasn't meaning to put words in your mouth. I wasn't implying that you suggested that solution. That was just an example.

I don't disagree that nurses do most of the work in hospitals, but they are not trained to do the work of doctors. I just don't see how people not qualified to do a certain job can regulate people that are.

I've had this conversation with nurses before. I'm sure any competent, experienced nurse can evaluate the effectivness and competnece of a physician, but I'm also sure they are not qualified to regulate them. For example, a surgeon that does heart transplants, does around eight years of training, AFTER Medical School. That's after 4 years of college. That's upwards of 16 years post high school training. How can someone that has a BS or MS in nursing have requisite knowledge to regulate that surgeon? They can't.

My point is that you have to be qualified to do the work, before you can regulate it. It's true in any job; law, engineering, carpentry, bricklaying, whatever. Physicians are the only ones that can regualte other physicains. They just do a damn poor job of it.

[FormerACLUmember]

If the the good people of Pennsylvania had any desire to change the situation, they would never have voted for the shysters who run the Commonwealth. No reform is possible in Pennsylvania.

[FormerACLUmember]

Conventional medicine kills cancer patients: one study shows that a woman diagnosed with breast cancer who does nothing has a life expectancy of 12 years. A woman who gives into the conventional medicine protocol of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation treatments has a life expectancy of 3 years.

Wow, what an incredible genius you are. With such a background in medical research, you will go far.