Originally Posted by User Name
Actually, this myth was debunked two years ago. The study,“ Claims, Errors, and Compensation Payments in Medical Malpractice Litigation,” was conducted by a prestigious group from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Risk Management Foundation and was published in the May 11, 2006 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study ultimately concluded that litigation accounted for less than 2% of health care costs, but since this happens to be my area of expertise, I want to show you how "medical malpractice caps" really hurt good people like you.
You often here that we need "tort reform" and "caps" on lawsuits to stop "FRIVOLOUS LAWSUITS". Let me PROVE to you, why you are being hoodwinked:
Republicans want to cap non-compensatory damages to 250k. How does 250k stop a "frivolous" law suit. A "frivolous" suit doesn't seek to "ring the bell" (as we say in the business). Frivolous suits look to get quick (and usually small amounts) of money from medical insurers. They will still survive. The ones that won't are like the case of a lady I represented. Here is her TRUE story (case went to trial).
Lady went in for a scheduled C-section. She was 25 and in perfect health. They prepped her and put her on the operating table and the anaesthesiologist gave her a "spinal" which numbs the entire lower half of the body and the incision site. He then placed her in the supine position. He didn't realize she wasn't fully flat, but actually slightly with her head lower than her legs. He injected the anaestesia and her OB/GYN successfully delivered a baby girl. What they didn't realize is that while she was lying there, the anaestsia started to migrate upwards (toward her head) until it got to the heart. Guess what happened next? Cardiac arrest.
Where was the anaesthesiologist? Whooping it up with some nurses in the cafeteria. The OB was gone, the only people left in the room to stitch her up, were two residents. They immediately called for the anaesthesiologist. He came and one of the residents said to him "call a code". He said no, just give her an "epi". They did, but the heart didn't start. Resident... "call a code". NO, increase the epi. Valuable minutes passed as my client lay on the table in full cardiac arrest.
Finally, the resident says, "you're killing her, calling a f__king code". Okay, call a code. That immediately start CPR and hit her with a defib. They bring her back.
Only she's been without oxygen for 2 whole minutes. Guess what that means? She's a vegetable. She will never walk, talk, feed herself, or hold her own baby. She's alive and cognizant of the rest of the world, but she has NO bodily functions at all. Our economist opined that her medical care will cost more than 11 million dollars for the rest of her life. Our medical experts opined that she will NEVER recover. Under the plan for "caps", she would get 250k and then she'd be on public assitance (where our taxes would care for her at the lowest level). We got a special needs trust for her (after verdict) with a value of 23 million dollars. That money will only be used for her healthcare and toward her daughter. Her husband left her two years after the incident and gets nothing from the suit, nor did he want anything. He just couldn't cope with seeing her like that everyday.
The radiologist lost his license (not for the malpractice) but thereafter, he attempted to change all the medical records. If we didn't get the honest testimony of one the residents, he would have gotten away with it. Still think we need caps? What if she was your sister or cousin?
Very true and it only cost us 4,000 brave soldiers and another 25,000 severly wonded ones, yet we are no safer today than we were on September 10, 2001.
No one man can, but a change of ideology can.
Interesting notion, although you created a sentence and argument out of two entirely incongruent thoughts.
I believe your intention is to suggest that Obama (the closet socialist) will ruin our democracy, correct? Yet, no one President has curtailed more civil liberties (yours and mine) than Bush an ardent "capitalist" and "anti-socialist", no?
I have litigated hundreds of civil rights cases over the last 10 years and simple measures like the "Patriot" act are the real culprits in destroying democracy. The notion that your government can tap your phones warrantless doesn't worry you? I'm sure there are other attorneys on this site who can validate what I'm saying but simple things are going on that represent a loss of your democracy, most supported by conservative judges and republicans (like NO RIGHT to privacy on cell phone calls). Can you imagine? Is this China?
How about all of the Bushie censorship? Don't you think the pretext of decency is an attack on the first amendment? Listen, you can cherry pick where you like, but lets at least be intellectually honest about this stuff...and for the record, there are a lot of places on the planet with a better "social safety net" than America, where the people enjoy higher standards of living than we do. Take a trip to some Scandanavian countries and go see for yourself. Not only will you enjoy some of the hottest women on the planet, but see how good the majority live, not just those at the top of the food chain.
The last thing I'll say while I'm on my soap box is this... what made America, America is the willingness to see and recognize that sometimes people do things better than we do. Once we see that, we take what they do and make it even better. Instead of using scary words like "socialism" and "terrorism", why not pick the places in the world with the best healthcare systems and emulate them. The places free from terrorism and emulate them. The places with the highest standard of living, best education and lowest crime and emulate them. If you can't see that makes me a HUGE patriot, the problem is with you, not me.
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