"I stopped practicing medicine when ..."

when Cohen posted this

he invited me to give him a wedgie

 

thank you

 

for those interested in forming their own opinions about proposition 12, here's one view

http://www.scotthochberg.com/amends/amend12.html

Proposition 12
The ballot will read: The constitutional amendment concerning civil lawsuits against doctors and health care providers, and other actions, authorizing the legislature to determine limitations on non-economic damages.

Background: In a liability lawsuit, the jury can award two types of damages: economic damages, such as compensation for medical bills and lost wages, and non-economic damages, such as for pain and suffering. Proposition 12 authorizes the legislature to set the maximum award for non-economic damages in medical malpractice lawsuits beginning immediately, and for other types of lawsuits beginning in 2005. Under legislation that would take effect if voters approve this amendment, the most anyone could collect from a doctor in a medical malpractice suit for "pain and suffering" would be $250,000.

For: Medical malpractice insurance costs are rising rapidly. These increases have forced physicians in some areas of the state to limit their practices or retire early. The increase in insurance costs is driven partially by increases in the size of jury awards in malpractice cases. Placing a cap on noneconomic damages will help reduce the cost of medical malpractice insurance in Texas. Allowing the legislature to limit such awards in other kinds of cases will allow the legislature to head off other similar problems.

Against: The damage caps authorized by this amendment would neither lower medical malpractice premiums nor improve patient access to care. The increase in premiums is not primarily due to higher jury awards, as those awards have not increased as quickly as premiums. Increases in medical malpractice rates have been caused by a variety of factors, including artificially low rates in the 1990s, recent stock market performances, and very low interest rates, all of which have reduced profits for insurance companies. A cap on economic damages will not effect any of these factors, nor will it affect whether doctors stay in practice. However, it will cause those harmed by medical malpractice to lose an important legal right to relief in court. There is no reason to give the legislature authority to enact caps in other areas that aren’t experiencing a liability insurance crisis, and doing so could create a system where each type of business lobbies the legislature for their own special liability limit.

 

Here's an article about the dirtiest secret in America today: the 100,000 plus who die annually in hospitals due to staph infection they get in the hospital.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/07/20/health/main515755.shtml

(AP) Deaths linked to hospital infections in 2000 were 14 percent higher than the federal government estimated, and nearly 75 percent of the deaths could have been prevented, a newspaper reported.

About 103,000 deaths were linked to hospital infections, 13,000 more than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calculated last year, according to a report in Sunday editions of the Chicago Tribune.

Many of the deaths were caused by unsanitary facilities, germ-laden instruments and unwashed hands, the newspaper reported. Infection rates are soaring nationally, exacerbated by hospital cutbacks and carelessness by doctors and nurses, according to the newspaper.

Hospital infections are now the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, behind heart disease, cancer and strokes, according to the CDC.

Serious violations of infection-control standards have been found in the majority of hospitals nationally, the newspaper said. Since 1995, more than 75 percent of all hospitals have been cited for serious cleanliness and sanitation violations.

Hospital cleaning and janitorial staffs are overwhelmed and inadequately trained, resulting in unsanitary rooms or wards where germs have thrived, the newspaper said. And payroll cutbacks have gutted staffs devoted to reducing infections.

In 1998, eight children died of an infection that spread from a Chicago pediatric medical center to a hospital. The flulike outbreak was halted months later after three dozen sick health care workers were ordered to stay home.

At Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, Ill., a doctor dropped a surgical glove on a dirty floor, picked it up, put it on his hand and changed the bloody dressing on the open wound of a burn patient.

In Detroit, infections killed four babies in 1997 as doctors and nurses moved about the pediatric intensive care unit without washing their hands, according to court records and interviews. It took two months for administrators to close the nursery for cleaning.

Staphylococcus bacteria inside a West Palm Beach, Fla., hospital infected more than 100 cardiac patients, killing 13, according to court records. The survivors underwent painful and debilitating surgery, as rotting bone was cut from their bodies.

At Bridgeport Hospital in Connecticut, germs flourished in areas that are supposed to be the most sterile, according to a review of hospital records collected in a lawsuit. The case involved four patients who contracted infections in late 1996 and early 1997. The paper said one operating room was often contaminated by dust because of faulty ventilation. Flies buzzed overhead during operations and doctors wore germ-laden clothes from home. Many did not wash their hands before operating, the paper said.

Hospitals are not required to disclose infection rates, and most don't, the paper said. Also, doctors are not required to tell patients about risk or exposure to hospital germs, the paper said.

To document the rising rate of infection-related deaths, the newspaper analyzed records from 75 federal and state agencies, as well as internal hospital files, patient databases and court cases around the country.

CDC officials said they believe most hospital infections are preventable, but the agency has not arrived at a precise number.

The American Hospital Association said the last decade of unprecedented cost-cutting and financial instability has impacted all areas of hospital care.

"It's had an effect on infection control and it's had an effect on our ability to recruit and retain workers. It's had an effect on our ability to invest in new and updated equipment as much as we would like to," said Rick Wade, spokesman for the AHA.

"It's also a question in front of society: How much do you want to invest in high-quality, safe medical care?," said Wade.

 

BTW, the key thing prop 12 does is allow the legislative toadies to pass a limit on pain and suffering to $250,000, and then start working on other damages in 2005.

 

yes, although this particular provision is to limit the pain and suffering numbers.

here's how the plaintiffs' lawyers sell it:
imagine you're on the jury:


You've seen the kind of pain Mr. Smashed Penis has to endure now. The 6 month rehabilition. The 8 painful operations he went through. How much is that kind of pain worth? Would you agree to be in that pain for 24 hours? Would you do it for $100? Let's say $100 per day is reasonable, for 365 days a year for the the next 30 years. That's 1.095 million, and that is what we are asking you to award - $100 a day, for pain you wouldn't endure for one day for $100.

Let's suppose a guy is 25 years old, never had kids, and wants them. A doctor is in his abdomen, accidently cuts something, the guy ends up impotent, and he's incontinent. It's painful everytime he urinates.

How much is that worth? What number makes it alright? Would you take $250,000?

 

I am not a plaintiffs lawyer. I've been on the insurance side in a huge number of cases, some of which were med mel, some of which involved hospitals in this town.

I quit doing any of that years ago, and have a strictly business practice. Most of my matters involve businesses that all do in excess of 100 mil per year.

The whole plaintiffs lawyer-doctors/insurance company battle is tedious. The hard damages are medical costs, experts, and loss of income producing capacity. Frankly, I'm disgusted with everyone involved in it - the plaintiff's bar, the defense/insurance bar, the insurers, the lackey politicians, the greedy hospitals and doctors, and the plaintiffs who always want too much.

The lawsuit approach is a terrible way to resolve these kind of disputes. If anyone would ever accept responsibility for screwing up, the lawsuits wouldn't be necessary, but none of these hospitals ever do that. They fight hard, and they deny all claims. Most claims get settled, and ANY claims that are the least bit suspicious get contested heavily.

It is a fiction that juries in Texas are running wild on malpractice cases. It simply is not happening. And so what if they are? The JUDGE decides what the judgment number will be, not the jury. The jury has NEVER decided. The jury can answer the questions as they see fit, but the judge can order a NEW TRIAL without even giving a reason. If he thinks the verdict is outrageous, he can order a new trial.

JUDGES enter judgments. Juries only answer questions. Those questions are called SPECIAL ISSUES. And based upon how the jury answers those questions, a party moves for judgment on the verdict. The other party can move for judgment non obstanto verdicto, Judgment notwithstanding the verdict. The judge can ignore the jury findings entirely, he can enter judgment for the other side, or he can enter a judgment REMITTING a portion of the verdict.

For example, in the much ballyhooed McDonald coffee spilling case of several years ago, everyone knows the jury awarded 2 million in punitives. No one knows that the judge remitted all but $450,000 or so, and gave the lady under a half mil total.

The judge always enter the judgment, and the verdict is only part of that. The judge has to conclude that there was sufficient evidence to support the findings, each required element of the cause of action needed to support the claim.

There are many, many checks in the system already. For a plaintiff in a med mal case to get over $250,000 in pain and suffering, they have to convince a jury AND a judge, every time.


Judges will not allow a person to get pain and suffering which bears little relationship to their medical and lost income damages.


The whole med mal crisis is a fiction and always has been. They crank it up every time they can, and laugh all the way to the country club.

90% of lawyers don't give a rat's azz about med mal, the doctors, the insurance defense lobby, and the plaintiffs med mal bar. The system used is terrible and everyone involved gets some of the blame, but the insurance companies get the most because they are the ones with the ability to change it.