Bitter Malpractice Fight Going to Voters

[cosmicone]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040926/ap_on_he_me/malpractice_showdown_2

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer

Rivaling Bush vs. Kerry for bitterness, doctors and trial lawyers are squaring off this fall in an unprecedented four-state struggle over limiting malpractice awards. The volatile issue is in voters' hands and each side is desperate to win, spending millions of dollars to make their cases and portray the other side as greedy.

In all four states — Florida, Nevada, Oregon and Wyoming — doctors and health insurers pushed to get measures on the Nov. 2 ballot, and trial lawyers are campaigning hard for a "No" vote.

"We have open warfare here with the personal injury lawyers," said Larry Matheis of the Nevada State Medical Association. "It's a national test of whether, in trying to solve the devastating medical liability crisis, we have to go directly to the people."

Never before have voters in so many states simultaneously had a chance to weigh in on the debate.

[KT2000]

1. Issue is playing in WA state too

The doctors have an ad where they support the Repub senate candidate because he is going to fix the mess for the doctors. (Patty Murray's opponent) He is a RWer that these doctors are proud to vote for!

These doctors make me sick - where are they on the issue of the uninsureds - pretty quiet.
Now they want to portray this malpractice issue as "their concern for their patients."

Gee - why don't they just join the rest of the uninsureds.

[Voltaire99]

2. This will be a key test of American intelligence in the Wal-Mart era

Are voters smart enough to preserve their right to sue doctors whose failure, incompetence or carelessness seriously harms or kills their loved ones?

Scarily enough, that remains to be seen.

[teryang]

3. Corporate America's attack on access to the courts...

...to redress grievances, a fundamental American right. This is a right that goes back nine centuries. Without it, you might as well get rid of elections, because they won't make any difference. Without access to the courts, you are nothing but a victim of the rich and powerful.

Denial of the constitutional right of access to the courts for civil redress of injury is what this corporate propaganda campaign is all about. The petite jury, a fundamental democratic institution, is under attack by corporate america because it is the great equalizer. The corporate goal is to eliminate access to the third branch of government, which rules by law rather than graft. Subverting legislatures and elections isn't enough because people decide on a jury. People are the enemy in corporate America's view. Take all decisions away from the people, that is their goal.

[amazona]

4. doctors are being short-sighted here

Where people have no access to courts to redress grievance, a certain percentage will take up weapons. There will be cases where a child or spouse is paralyzed for life by malpractice, which costs the family many millions over time (which most don't have, of course!) and without redress from the courts, an upset family member will take up his assault rifle and deal it out to the doctor's family in turn. While most people are indeed sheeple, it's the ten percent who are not who will be creating some scary crimes of vengeance in future.


A fair, as opposed to "the fix is in," court system exists not just to humor the people but to protect the powerful as well. The doctors here are forgetting that you have to give in order to keep getting.

[saigon68]

5. Don't worry the democrats have a solution

They are going to ban all guns in America..

That way the doctor can sleep soundly in his armed guarded (permit to protect the rich) gated community at night.

He will then only have to worry about being accosted with a kitchen knife. </sarcasm>

[teryang]

6. Great insight, without the courts all that's left is self help

In other words, violence.

[Demoiselle]

7. It's the INSURANCE COMPANIES, STUPID!!!!!!

There has been no increase in damage suit dollar amounts over several years. (Bob Herbert had a good column on this a few months ago.) But the insurance companies have jacked rates up precipitously. Lost a little too much money in the techy boom/bust thing and had to recoup their losses, according to those willing to be honest about this stuff.

[Tempest]

8. The Malpractice Myth

http://www.dmregister.com/opinion/stories/c2125555/21716886.html

President Bush said in his State of the Union address this year that the threat of lawsuits against doctors and hospitals was one of the "prime causes" of rising health-care costs. Bush's words suggest a correlation between health-care costs and the premiums physicians and hospitals pay to protect themselves in lawsuits.

Yet between 1988 and 1998, U.S. health-care costs increased 74.4 percent while malpractice premiums increased 5.7 percent. The total premiums paid in 2000 added up to 0.56 of the nation's total health-care bill.

<snip>

New information in a national database that collects reports of every judgment and settlement paid in malpractice demonstrates just the opposite. An analysis of that data by a consumer-advocacy group reveals malpractice payouts decreased by 8.2 percent between 2001 and 2002. Meanwhile, doctors" premiums didn't go down.