re: Healthcare costs and tort reform - crushing your myths

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Do we need tort reform?

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Do we need to abrogate the rights of the few to preserve the finances of the many?

There's no tort reform needed - unless its in the OTHER direction. Louisiana doctors are already magically exempt from having to pay any non-medical damages they cause over 500k - just becaude the legislature passed a law saying so. Of course -they have to cause these damages while practicing medicine, the field they are experts in - in order to be exempt. If they cause the damages doing something else that they aren't highly paid do to (like driving) - then we hold them to the full amount.

Tell me that isn't fricked up, huh? You frick up doing something you're NOT an expert at - you have to pay the full amount - you frick up in your chosen profession - and you get a discount! Good deal! Imagine if that applied to used car salesmen - or - attorneys?!?

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Include penalties dissuading frivolous actions.

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The victim of a frivolous action is already allowed to claim every penny in damages caused by such action - what more do you want? In fact - if you're the victim of a frivolous action, you can actually recover 100% of the damages caues. If you're the victim of medical malpractice, that's not the case.

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You can never compare the health care here in the US with foreign countries. We don't have to wait 6 months to a year just to get a minor surgery or have babies die because they did not want to perform a C-section and take the baby.

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Neither does anyone in a developed western nation my friend....the infant mortality rate in the US is closer to third world nations than the rest of the developed world and life expectancy is also lower....

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Neither does anyone in a developed western nation my friend....the infant mortality rate in the US is closer to third world nations than the rest of the developed world

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In the future, if you feel inclined to compare US Medicine with 3rd world medicine I'd suggest stepping away from your computer. You'd only need set foot in a 3rd world facility once to understand the full extent of the stupidity of your comparison.

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it's shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other countries report as stillbirths. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless. And some countries don't reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality rates. For this very reason, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which collects the European numbers, warns of head-to-head comparisons by country.

LINK

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As a physician there is no checks and balances regarding frivolous lawsuits. Anyone at anytime can accuse me of anything and there is nothing that I can do about it. Great system.

Regarding the review panels, if the case has merit it will win. The fact that most review panels side with the doctor should be telling. It tells that nothing done was against standard of care. Yes bad outcomes happen and are tragic but not necessarily the fault of anyone.

Tort reform is actually pretty impressive, I think.

Who would have thought in these modern times that you could convince people to vote away their own rights?

I do remember the campaigns in the mid 90's that claimed insurance premiums would go down if tort reform was enacted.

People actually believed them, and now look at how diminished their remedies are for doctor malpractice. Plus, premiums have consistently risen.

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Who would have thought in these modern times that you could convince people to vote away their own rights?

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Presumably you are referring to caps on awards, and not to tort reform.

I do love this thread. No one wants to acknowledge any of the numbers from the actual studies. But everyone is willing to give credence to numbers that people pull out of thin air that are an order of magnitude more than what the actual study says.

Brilliant.

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I do love this thread. No one wants to acknowledge any of the numbers from the actual studies. But everyone is willing to give credence to numbers that people pull out of thin air that are an order of magnitude more than what the actual study says.

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Was this a shitty way to drag your dying Supernova like thread back to the top of the board?

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Was this a shitty way to drag your dying Supernova like thread back to the top of the board?

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It's a way to point out that facts don't matter to people here

For all of the belly aching from conservatives about liberals not loving facts and arguing based on emotion this thread shows that partisan conservatives are equally as guilty.

This is embarrassing really