Well, you and the professor are somewhat off the mark. It’s not the big awards that are causing the problem, it is, once again, insurance companies. A friend of mine worked in management for a large medical group (almost 1000 physicians, clinicians and techs) and their group was nearly put out of business altogether by rising medical malpractice insurance rates. OB-GYN being among the most costly, forcing many baby docs out of business.
Tort reform is a real problem, like it or not. Mistakes, truly human error, ought not be something someone sues for, but they do. Negligence should be the target, but is often hard to prove, so the net goes wider than many anticipate.
It’s not the solve-all, but it IS a point of repair.
Nah, we were playing poker. Remember, he brought the 7-layer dip.
The medical care system is jacked, and has been thanks to two events:
WWII Price Controls putting so many people into employer plans.
Medicare’s inception cranking up the cost in many markets. Medicare paid BETTER than other plans in many markets when it first came out, and a lot of doctors raised their rates to the Medicare rate.
The medics are their own worst enemies. They cover up poor doctors. They do not have a system in place to compensate for damages doctors and hospitals cause. They can cause horrible ,lifetime damages. Yet they fight the patients and their only recourse is a lawsuit. Only 1 in 8 with a legitimate suit actually does sue.
Yet the cost of paying lawsuits is less than 1 percent of the revenue. That tells me insurance companies are gouging doctors with premiums.
Babay doctors who screw up can put a kid under a lifetime of medical care. They can create someone who it will cost millions to keep alive . What’s the easy answer. Stop lawsuits. I think not.
Why SHOULDN’T mistakes and human error be something to sue for? I mean, if the server messes up my order at a restaurant, and brings me another person’s order, that’s a relatively small mistake. Amputating the left leg instead of the right one might be just a mistake or human error, but I think that someone should be allowed to sue for that (I know about the modern procedures that help prevent this, it’s just an easy example).
And I think that insurance companies should be liable for all damages, pain and suffering, plus punitive damages, if they deny treatment which was later found to be medically necessary. As it is, they have no incentive to approve treatment in a timely manner. And no, I don’t have ANY sympathy for them whatsoever.
Okay everybody, bridge game at my house tonight. Send me a PM letting me know what time you were here, and whether you sat North, South, West, or East.
Article in the Detroit papers today. State insurance czar on the spot over Blue Cross rates. In Michigan we have a person in charge of setting Blue Cross rates. Blue Cross is supposed to be a non-profit health corporation. Yet the rates go up, up and up. Blue Cross seeks a huge increase in prices of senior supplementary health care to fill out Medicare gaps. They are debating a 31.2 percent increase. The czar approved a 5.6 % increase way back in August. He also approved a 22 % hike in rates for customers who buy Blue Cross on their own, not through work. He said he was on the consumers side because Blue Cross actually wanted a 56 % increase. The commissioner could be replaced with a rubber stamp and save tax dollars.
We are told prices are dropping across the board for many things. wages are stagnant or dropping. Yet insurance companies want constant huge price increases as the cut and deny coverage. They have everything in place to loot the consumer .
The Great Health Insurance Scam Heres an insurance company exec who had to get by on 1.4 billion dollars. He is a star because he found many ways to deny coverage. This is some health care system we have.
My father’s experience in Spain was:
get diagnosed with cancer
get placed on medical leave
get treated
get declared cured
get diagnosed with cancer before the leave was up (medical leave can include recovery time to make sure the patient really is in decent shape before going back to work)
get treated
at some point during this second treatment go see a panel who were to decide whether he could get more medical leave (one year after starting leave) and who said yes on the spot
get declared cured
get diagnosed with cancer for the third time
get admitted into the hospital where he was treated on the second anniversary of starting medical leave, therefore since he couldn’t go see the panel I went there bringing a copy of his admission letter notarized by the hospital’s receptionist (they already had the rest of his medical history). They looked at the paper, asked me two questions, looked at each other and said “ok, medical retirement it is.” The other options available were being declared able to work and being put on partial disability (unlikely as he was an office worker).
Uf. I hope nobody tries to read that out loud and apologize to anybody who does.
Unsurprisingly, insurance companies don’t like expensive policy-holders. One such person, suffering from muscular dystrophy, lives in New York. Because insurance companies are legally prohibited from discriminating against those who submit large claims, one insurance company cancelled an entire line of coverage state-wide just to rid themselves of this one person.
Also, this company also refers to their clients/customers as “dogs” who they would like nothing more than to “get rid of.”
Again, someone tell me why the status quo is acceptably before I end up needing to file a claim of my own from bashing my head against my desk.
What kills me is that everyone who’s against reform act like we’re pulling these ideas out of a Flash Gordon futuristic society where It Just Can’t Work. Like they’ve never seen the likes of such a hair-brained idea in all their wildest dreams. HOW HOW HOW can you POSSIBLY think we can reform the system?