I’m spewing vitriol. You are spewing peppermint scented milk on the other hand.
Let’s count how many citations Gawd has. Lets see, thats, uh, 0. Now, all of my cites are biased partisan vitriol spewing assholes. I get it. Face it, you know he’s not going to vote for tort reform. I’m not making things up. Vote for him if you want to, I never told anyone else not to, just that I’m not.
I find it mystifying (and repugnant) that the so-called conservative party that supposedly wants to reduce the amount of government intervention in my life, dares to try to legislate what I would be legally allowed to collect if I’m injured and successfully sue the negligent party. I really do find that utterly outrageous, and I’m thankful that the legislators I’ve voted for have seen fit to vote on this bill exactly as I would want them to. I will cheerfully vote for Kerry/Edwards and hope that they continue to stand up for the rights of citizens not to be controlled by someone else’s personal idea of what “too high” is when it comes to determining the value of my life.
Let’s see some proof that Cheney did any of the things you listed.
Just out of interest, then, what would you consider to be a reasonable award in the case that minty quoted, in which Edwards won a settlement for a girl who had her intestines ripped out by a swimming pool pump? What price, exactly, would you put on an injury that fucks up the whole of the rest of your life? Do you think that compensation should be limited to simply paying her medical expenses, or do you perhaps think that she deserves some consideration for the fact that “for the rest of her life will need to be hooked up to feeding tubes for 12 hours each night”?
Furthermore, the supporters of “tort reform” tend to focus all attention on the “greedy lawyers” and on large compensation payouts. They often forget that such payouts are given not only to reward the victims (and pay the lawyers), but also to act as punishment and deterent against companies and individuals who cut corners or take actions that put people at risk. A cap on payouts not only penalizes those who deserve compensation, but it sends a message that the cost of being caught is lower, and that it might be economically viable to continue unsafe practices and just make the occasional (capped) payout.
Now, i’d probably be happy with a situation whereby some proportion of the huge payout went to a suitable charitable fund or trust, and not directly to the plaintiff. I’d also be happy if the appropriate laws were tightened so that companies like the one in Edwards’ case could be held criminally (and not just civilly) responsible for their actions. But, right now, the only language some of these fuckers understand is money, and if you cap their liabilty in cases like this, it can have the effect of encouraging reckless behavior, or at the very least making it less likely that such behavior will be corrected.
I haven’t provided citations mainly because my role here has been to defend the assertion that he is an ambulance chaser based on a few lawsuits in the 80’s that the right has latched on to as propaganda. I’ve asked you for cites that he will indefinitely block all tort reform because it is YOU with the burden of proof-you’re asserting something that cannot be proven. I haven’t claimed your sources are partisan, either. Just that they do not illustrate what you are asserting.
I still haven’t seen the text of SB.11, but capping noneconomic damages at $250K sounds a bit low to me and not of any help to a citizen who has been injured/maimed/damaged by their doctor, hospital or procedure. So it would be in the interest of the populace, you and I, to not have SB.11 in place.
Sam
250K in noneconomic damages doesn’t mean only 250K. It means 250K on top of whatever else comes up by way of medical costs, lost wages, and the like.
http://www.namic.org/reports/tortReform/NoneconomicDamage.asp
Granted, I know that an association of insurance companies might not be the most open viewpoint on this, but the only thing on this page is factual data. The “Governator” as he has been so non-vitriolically called, proposed a 75% tax on punitive damages. Suing corporations for large amounts of money might seem alright, because the loss is spread out amongst shareholders. Suing individual people, even “overprotected” doctors for amounts larger than 1 million don’t teach them a lesson. They put them in bankruptcy. $7.5 million for an OB/Gyn that makes 200K a year would take them 36.5 years to pay if their insurance company turned around and sued them for damages, as would probably happen.
Nobody is keeping you from looking up the text of S .11 yourself.
I still have never said the words ambulance chaser.
And remind me exactly what is rewarding about putting yourself in debt for over $100,000 bucks and dedicating almost a decade of your life only to enter a field you may be forced out of several years down the line? These people cannot afford to practice at all, what the fuck is rewarding about that?
Believe me, they are plenty dedicated to helping people, but they’re not going to cast aside their quality of life, nor should they.
I still don’t see how anyone has proved that this is the fault of attorneys who are attempting to recover damages for people who have been killed or maimed by a doctor’s gross negligence. Why not pursue the insurance companies? Why not make the AMA kick out the bad doctors who raise the rates for everyone? Why put caps on awards that, by their nature, affect the people who need them the most?
I’m not getting into that, just refuting the ludicrous notion that people who passed on being an OB/GYN because of the current legal climate aren’t “dedicated”.
I suppose you, I, and your GF look at what a “rewarding” career is differently. My mom decided to become a doctor to help people. She racked up the debt becoming educated, remaining educated, paying for insurance, Etc. She still does it because she loves helping people, no matter how hard it is to stay in practice sometimes. If your GF really wanted a career that would pay her well and that she wouldn’t have to stick her neck out so much at times, she should have gone into bioengineering or something.
With Insurance companies dicking doctors over on pay, and all of the other factors listed in this thread, well, being a doctor ain’t all it seems to be cut out to be at times, is it?
Sam
Yes. Thank God some of us are still dedicated enough to go into it, however, now the fields where people are less likely to have the bad hours and bad turnouts are extremely competitive. It is sad that neurosurgery (damn hard) is easier to get a residency in dermatology (not as damn hard, by a lot). Plastics, derm, radiology, opthalmology, the high paying, lower risk (to a degree, although plastics has its problems) definite hour professions are incredibly hard to get into now.
Some of us even have the heart and money to be involved in Operation Smile and MSF. One of the people in my class is taking a year off to work in Botswana for public health concerns, increasing her debt incredibly. Doctors are a dedicated breed, even with new rules limiting residency to 80 hours a week.
Nobody said that she didn’t want to stick out her neck and not help people, she just made a cost/benefits analysis and decided that OB/GYN was not for her. Lots of doctors are doing that. Even ones that started out as OBs. Go look up some of it again.
Not all doctors are in the AMA. It is a paying dues club type deal. Just like all old people aren’t in the AARP. It should be up to the states to pull the licenses of doctors who cause multiple problems. Quite a few do. One strike shouldn’t mean they lose their license.
Worldy-
This isn’t the “current legal climate”. This has been the climate for a long time, and in reality, what has happened is sort of akin to the “blue wall” of the police force breaking down. THe Good 'ol boy network of doctors protecting their own just isn’t there anymore.
qc-
How much is the wrong breast being removed worth in pain and suffering as a result of a failed mastectomy? How much pain and suffering is it worth to a gastric bypass patient gets a strep infection from a contaminated tool and must spend 8 months in the hospital having his guts repaired? Or the wrong testicle removed in a removal surgery for a malignant growth?
These are the reasons caps are bad. Because people fuck up BIG sometimes and it impacts peoples lives in tremendous ways. Awful horrifying ways.
I’m obviously not going to change your mind, but that’s why I don’t support most tort reform.
Sam
No one is advocating that. However, if the state licensing boards are not adequately removing doctors who have repeatedly exercised gross negligence, then that is something that must be addressed.
That’s the very point, staying in practice. These OB/GYNs aren’t “doing what they love” and riding out the tough times, they’re getting ground up and spit out, literally left on the corner.
What the hell does that have to do with anything? The field they wanted to go into currently has people being driven out in droves, so they picked a different field yet you say they’re not dedicated. That’s a pretty obnoxios accusation to be making.
No it doesn’t, they should make people sign an ironclad disclaimer before getting treatment, and if they don’t, fuck 'em let 'em drop dead.
Lucky I’m not in control I guess.
Bah, before the nazis jump on me, let me retract that, and put it differently.
Wasn’t going to jump on you about it, but rather let you know that such contracts wouldn’t be enforceable. Contracts signed under duress are invalid - and telling someone “agree to this or you’ll die” is certainly duress.
Well, according to the wonderful insurance plan I have, one of my hands is worth $5K if removed on accident. If someone causes it to come off by negligence, is it worth eleventy billion? Either way my surgery career is over before it starts.
If someone gets strep and has to spend 8 months in the hospital, it should be worth the pain and suffering to them as it is for the person who gets strep from any other cause. What if there isn’t anyone to sue, is their pain zero?
If her wrong breast is removed, I find it perfectly acceptable to charge them the cost of putting a replacement on, plus some nominal fee. Never in excess of a million dollars. Most people wouldn’t notice a testicle missing, but it might cause the person some emotional distress. Removing a leg causes distress too. But people lose their legs in accidents and don’t feel owed millions. The problem is the mentality of “we must punish those who do bad” when they aren’t intentionally doing it. It usually is the overworked surgical staff, trying to have enough cases to afford the days rent/premiums.
What cap would you find acceptable? The problem I have with them is that the mentaility of this culture feels entitled to sue due to pain and suffering for the smallest things. What if someone happens to have a genetic problem that causes them a lifetime of suffering. It is obviously their parents fault for not having genetic counseling to check out these problems. Why can’t they sue for that? My orthopedist was sued during a knee scope because a patient woke up with a corneal abrasion. He wasn’t anywhere near the guys eye, and nobody knows how or where it happened. They settled for around $250K. For an eye scratch. These I have problems with.
It seems to me that people these days have forgotten that medicine is a far from perfect science. These people are not psychic gods whom know the perfect course of action for millions of unique situations. Of course mistakes are being made, but I don’t feel the current amount of litigation is even close to what’s going on, it’s way way overboard. I remember hearing somewhere that Bayer has 8,000 lawsuits pending over the side effects one of their drugs caused. The problem is that 6,000 of the litigants never experienced any of them, but yet they sue, wtf? First off, I’m all for keeping doctors in line, some ass saws off the wrong leg, or leaves some tongs inside someone, yank the license, temporarily, permanently, whatever, disciple them. You want to slap up some hospital with a million dollar fine to “teach” them, give the fine to charity. We need to take the lotto aspect of these things out of the picture. On one extreme end we have doctors fucking things up, and on the other we have people suing the shit out of any doctor that sneezes the wrong way, both are bad.
Whooooops, discipline them.
This post is right on.
The medical malpractice standard isn’t whether the doctor should have used his psychic powers to immediately comprehend everything that ails the patient. Rather, it’s whether the doctor materially deviated from the normal procedure or otherwise committed gross negligence while dealing with a patient. As to your bayer example, caps will not affect people who file frivilous suits. Frivilous suits are those without merit and will usually be dismissed before trial. Implementing caps on the awards to those who need them does little to affect such lawsuits.