Well, I'm not a gimmick poster. All I did was warn BB30 that you were playing a cute little game because you can't defend that 1,990 page pile of excrement.
I don't see how dragging the discourse to the gutter helps anything or is interesting reading. I'm not just talking about this post, or about you.
Absolutely true. The opening post and initial discussion was quite interesting to me. It's something I actually like to read. Then it became a bunch of scrolling through stuff that lost me a few brain cells. I'm not posting this in any official capacity, just offering my opinion of what I'm seeing.
I agree. The reason I warned BB30 was to stop the thread from going down that road. I'll take some blame for continuing to swat at the fly buzzing around my head, but note, I tried to put the thread back on track. So, again, I'll ask those that support this bill: What does this bill improve? It's more expensive, it makes coverage worse and destroys the relationship between the physician and the patient.
As a side note, now that my claims adjusting is specialized to medical malpractice and medical commercial property, for every 100 malpractice lawsuites, 90 have zero merit in any way and the plaintiff attorney is just looking for a quick payday or to stiff arm an insurance company. Of the remaining 10 lawsuites, 5 may be a debatable case of malpractice and the other 5 are clearly malpractice. I would want to see any health care reform do something about those 90 baseless cases.
But again, as mentioned previously, it's already been determined that tort reform won't meaningfully affect health costs. I'd also add that Obama himself brought up tort reform and essentially said to the GOP to bring it to the table. But instead of trying to insert that into the current bill, NOW they finally get around to producing their own bill which will be released I think this century for debate. Again, roles are reversed, it's always seemingly a matter of "my way or the highway" with both parties.
Since you are defending this bill, it must optimize what you would like to see optimized. What is this bill optimizing. Yes.
And that's a shame. When doctors are forced to treat patients with the knowledge that a meritless lawsuit is always looming it changes the care given- more tests, more RX... and screws up the system for everyone. Healthcare would be more affordable if doctors didn't work with this dagger over them. In fact, many leave the profession, or the state where they work, or leave a specialty field due to these lawsuites and accompaning raise in professional liability insurance rates. We then add to that much less pay from the national health care plan and I wonder what the long term effect will be.
You aren't making the insurance company the good guys in this senario . . . are you? If 90-95% of the medical malpractice cases don't succeed, then it sounds like the system works. And for those 5-10% of legit claims, those people get rightfully compensated. This issue has little to do with the healtcare package.
It's been estimated that tort reform would save between $50B and $200B in lowered premiums. I'm wondering how this avenue wasn't investigated to lower costs? Instead, we're talking about cutting $500B from Medicare. Howard Dean was telling the truth right here: [video=youtube;IdpVY-cONnM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdpVY-cONnM&feature=related[/video]
The lawyers are taking the cases on spec, it'd be the lawyers who'd choose not to sue if they don't think there's a real case to be taken to court or a settlement reached. It'd be the ambulance chasers paying the defendant's bills.
and often facing a dire ongoing medical situation. My dad is a Doc and faced a seemingly baseless malpractice lawsuit about 10 years back. Though it seemed that most everything was in his favor, there was still the human element of the actual judging that could have come down against him. Because of this, his insurance company continually pressured him to settle. If he had done so his already considerable malpractice insurance rates would have skyrocketed. Going forward, one more successful case brought against him would have meant the end of his medical career. The day before the case was to be heard the plaintiff's side slashed it's settlement offer. Pops refused. The case was dropped less then an hour before it was to be heard. The plaintiff had developed full blown cancer and died a few months later. My dad had lost 15 pounds to stress and countless hours of productivity. He was out nearly 40K in legal fees. I'd never seen him bitter/cynical before as he had been living his life dream of helping people. STOMP
Actually, the CBO just did a new calculation on the effects of tort reform. They said it could reduce costs by one-half of one percent. Me, I'm not against saving that one-half of one percent. Bring it on. For me, that would save about 37 cents per month, assuming the savings were passed on to the insured. But let's not pretend like half a percent is the cure. barfo
I fail to see how taking a sledgehammer to the health care system is the correct way to fix it, rather than implementing a series of smaller\incremental fixes....I think mostly everyone agrees that it DEFINITELY needs to be fixed\addressed....but I and obviously a lot of other american voters don't agree that it needs to be done is one massive\expensive piece of legislation....there are a lot of easier\more cost effective moves that could and should be made first before something like this legislation is forced on americans.... ....but then again liberals seem to relish the idea of telling other people how they think they should live practically every aspect of thier lives...and therein lies the ultimate error of thier ways...
Except that again you seem to avoid the fact that it was already brought up by the President himself. I don't see the GOP trotting out amendments regarding tort reform. I see them talking about, but no action. They just say no and expect to get their way.
Allow me to say something that is unpopular: Doctors are human. They make mistakes. Of course, when they make a mistake, the consequences are huge. That being said, they're not perfect and it's a foolish to ever believe they should be. That's why you get a second opinion on anything serious. Malpractice is a real problem because there are bad docs out there. Identifying those bad docs and making them pay is an important job. In that sense, my hats are off to trial lawyers. That being said, anyplace there is a potential for profit, there are bad actors who will attempt to exploit the system. If you're a victim of gross malpractice, you should still only receive a sum to cover your health care costs or to keep up your current standard of living. Punitive judgments hurt everyone through higher premiums. The goal should be to price bad docs out of the business by raising their insurance rates so high, they can no longer practice. But good docs become victims too. STOMP highlighted the personal costs these docs suffer. In short, we badly need tort reform. It's too bad the Democrats are too afraid to take on part of their base.
