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[quote=”grb1063″]Medical malpractice suits will never be reduced until there is comprehensive tort reform. Given that 75% of congress, including the current executive Oblahblahblahma, that is highly unlikely to happen. Lawyers pass laws to benefit lawyers, which can only be interpreted by lawyers. Texas is the only state that has passed comprehensive tort reform (2 years ago) with respect to medical malpractice. The result has been a 51% reduction in malpractice insurance costs and such a mass influx of doctors that the licensing baord cannot keep pace. Any doctor will tell you that many unneccesary tests are preformed on patients simply to keep the lawyers away. There are more lawyers in the 76 story Columbia Center in Seattle than the entire country of Japan. In Japan, the losing side pays all the costs of the lawsuit….what a concept.[/quote]
Now, I can’t stay quiet. So what if some of you are insulted. Can’t be any worse than I have been insulted, so here goes:
grb, you are so wrong! I agree with musicfan, and I too, was a nurse for thirty-two years – in Texas. Texas did indeed pass a law that placed a ‘cap’ on medical malpractice, and pretty much opened the door for licensed physicians to literally get away with murder! I was an employee of the State Board of Medical Examiners when this crappy law was sneaked past the unwary/unaware/inattentive voters of Texas, when guess who was governor (that’s right, W, and it was a lot more than two years ago).
The only beneficiaries of this so-called tort reform were the insurance companies and the physicians themselves. Amazingly – now, think about it – this sort of thing does NOT benefit lawyers.Who suffers as a consequence? Patients who did not receive proper medical care, that’s who. Maybe your mother, or your wife, or some other loved one. Broken arm didn’t get properly set, and leaves you without the use of the limb? So what? You can’t sue the people responsible, ’cause no lawyer in Texas will take your case, because there’s not enough money there for him.
The fact is that medical malpractice is all too common, and not really that difficult to prove, but so what? W and his cronies made sure that the victims (and, believe me, there are plenty of them, now) now have absolutely no recourse.
You are correct in that there are too many lawyers in the U. S., but that is not entirely due to medical malpractice. It is due to the fact that Americans no longer stand up and take responsibility for their own actions. Something bad happened? Somebody is to blame, and somebody has to pay!
And, here I go again, contributing to this sorry forum that is paradoxically called “WeLoveCostaRica.Com.” Why is that ? Why aren’t you all talking about Costa Rica, instead of all the constant complaining about the U. S.? Boggles the mind……
OK, I’ve gotten under the roof………start throwing your rocks……
musicfan makes very valid points. In particular, the point that insurance companies, staffed by legions of faceless and totally unaccountable bureaucrats, do indeed interfere in physician-patient decisionmaking on a continuous basis. Just look at the restrictions, limitations and exclusions in any insurance policy. Then look at the application by unseen, decisionmakers all of whom are marching to the beat of increased profits, patient care be damned.
I am sympathetic to the issue of tort reform with respect to medical malpractice, but I pose this simple question: What’s the alternative to the current system?
Clearly, medical licensing boards in Texas and every other state are the toothless servants of those whom they license. How many (count ’em) disciplinary actions has any of these state boards taken in the past year. How many state medical societies have acted? How many hospitals have denied staff privileges to malperforming practicioners? Count ’em. You’ll have fingers left.
So again I pose the question: What’s the alternative?
To be sure, some malpractice suits are unjustified, just as are some suits for other potential torts, but others are not. If the fear of a malpractice suit is what keeps practitioners in line, and in the absence of any meaningful alternative, then the current system is the best available.
It would be interesting to see a retroactive study of the Texas experience. By just what factor will malpractice suits, successful suits, awards, and insurance premiums drop?
Oh, by the way, the structure of the Japanese legal community is totally unlike that of the United States. While it is true that Japan has a mere fraction of the number of “attorneys” per capita that the U.S. has, Japan has a whole second category of legal practitioners who perform many of the functions that American attorneys perform. It’s not unlike the two-tiered “solicitor/barrister” system in the United Kingdom.
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