I started a thread in GD about “tort reform”, proposing in particular that medical malpractice litigation be eliminated entirely. The first response startled me: eliminating such litigation and malpractice awards entirely led to “only [one] difference between your proposal and the current system …”
As I complained in another recent BBQ Pit thread, Dopers respond to my posts without reading them for comprehension. (And this happened again in that very BBQ Pit thread. :smack: ) I hope objective Dopers (if such exist) will peruse at least the first two posts in the above-linked thread and tell me if my OP was ambiguous and whether it appears Richard Parker read OP for comprehension. (I’m not asking here whether my proposal is sound, nor whether Mr. Parker is a world-renowned expert on medical malpractice. I’m simply asking whether he appears to have read OP in that thread for comprehension.)
Um, okay. I always thought he was a total dick, making those tiny people he kept in jars. He should have at least put them in a dollhouse or something so they could do stuff other than be miserable. Jerk.
Your OP was not well thought-out. When some problems with your idea were pointed out, you complained that you said in your OP that you were only focusing on the compensation issue. Yet in your OP you mention incentives regarding the avoidance of medical negligence. You also seem to misunderstand Richard Parker’s description of a private panel as opposed to a jury: he is right – if insurance is bought to cover malpractice, private panels will likely decide claims. It is clear to me in your post #3 you generally misunderstand and misinterpret the response you replied to.
Since you seem to be struggling with your perception that people don’t read your OPs closely, Septimus, I will try to explain how your OP was unclear.
The main but not sole problem with the writing in your OP was this sentence: “Whether the hospital finances such insurance itself, or pays premiums to an insurance company, an incentive is created to avoid medical negligence, but the criteria would be based on actual medical facts, not what might appeal to a jury emotionally.” Your use of the passive voice leaves unclear what part of your proposal creates this incentive or how, and your next clause suggests it has something to do with criteria for evaluating medical facts, which will replace what a jury does. A natural reading is that some insurance panel will be doing something similar to what jury is asked to do under the current system, but eliminating the irrationality of juries.
Upon re-reading, and your subsequent clarifications, it is now clear to me that your proposed insurance system would have the insurance company pay an award whenever a patient has any negative medical outcome. And in your mind this would create an incentive to avoid medical negligence, and would be otherwise financially practical. Presumably, then, the thing being evaluated according to criteria involving “actual medical facts” is something like the severity of the injury, rather than causation or fault. (Is that right?) For a number of reasons – including the implausibility of the premise involving incentives and the fact that severity of an injury is not ordinarily the disputed issue with juries (but instead the existence of fault) – I read your proposal differently from how you intended it. Sometimes, when you encounter contradictory sentences in a piece of text, you have to prioritize one to the exclusion of others, and so I took my best shot at an interpretation and ran with it.
In the future, if you think someone has misread an OP of yours, identify what you think they’ve misread and clarify it. Maybe they got it wrong because they didn’t read carefully. Or maybe they got it wrong because the writing wasn’t clear. But it doesn’t really matter. There’s no reason to derail a civil discussion over an initial misunderstanding.
It’s an unfortunate phrase, but it does have a meaning. It means to actually think about what you are reading, and question your assumptions of what it means. Instead of, say, jumping on something that seems like it wouldn’t make sense, try to make it make sense, or at least ask for clarification. If something sounds stupid, try to figure out an alternate interpretation that wouldn’t be stupid, or, again, ask for clarification.
Perhaps someone can come up with a better name for the concept. And, even if they do, those who require it need to remember to do it themselves, rather than just admonishing other people for not doing it.
You, the OP, are an uninformed, highly opinionated, reckless spreader of misinformation who resents it when correct information is presented. By comparison, you make Sarah Palin look thoughtful, informed and contributing.
