Obama Says We Don't Need Tort Reform

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Is it justice to be falsely accused of negligence routinely, and have to be put on trial over and over again, to proves one's innocence?


No. What it is, is just plain wrong, and it should be illegal.


Yuuup.

Makes me ill.

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The problem is that the system is so far beyond punishing those who commit true negligence, and instead simply punishes bad outcomes, that it is profoundly unjust, and causes dangerous adaptations in practice that cause harm to patients (unnecessary tests and treatments). No one that I've heard wants "a blank check to commit negligence". I think we would all settle for a system that punishes true negligence. However, we don't accept a system that uses the prop of "negligence" as an excuse to extort money out of any and every physician, even the best amongst us, practically at random, simply because a patient has a bad outcome and a jury can be confused by sham "experts" whose testimony is bought and paid for.

Even if as a physician you are never sued (unlikely), over your career hundreds of thousands (or more) dollars that would have been available to pay you, will go towards malpractice insurance. That's money either indirectly, or directly taken out of your paycheck.

Just today, I was talking to a family physician (a very "low risk" specialty) in his 50's. He said he'd been sued four times in his career already and won each case, but not before being accused of negligence, having to miss work for depositions, having to be cross-examined in a court room multiple times and put on trial. This is in a "tort reform" state, and he's a super nice guy that does not p--s off patients. Is he supposed to just shrug this off and practice the same as before he was sued 4 times for negligence he never committed? He'd be a fool.

Is it justice to be falsely accused of negligence routinely, and have to be put on trial over and over again, to proves one's innocence?


No. What it is, is just plain wrong, and it should be illegal.

Excellent post. Quoted for posterity.
 
As a slight aside, we can see an experiment happening in California from which we can measure results. This election, Republicans were effectively wiped out of of the State. The Legislature now has the 2/3 supermajority they need to pass any and all legislation, tax increase, and regulation without fear of any Republican opposition.

California is the richest state in the nation, with slightly higher than average unemployment. If Parrotfish and the other Progressives are right, this new experiment in unlimited Progressive government should produce the following benefits:

1. Improved healthcare outcomes
2. Higher employment (per his Huffington Post article whereby higher taxes magically produce more jobs)
3. Lower poverty levels
4. Better school performance
5. Improved roads/infrastructure

It will be interesting to compare the new Progressive(er) California with my own state of Nevada which is Libertarian, less wealthy, has the highest unemployment in the nation, and a Republican governor and legislature. In four years, let's see which of the two states is moving in the right direction.

Here you go.
 
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What in the world does tort reform have to do with Obama? Tort reform is a state level issue. States like Texas make med mal lawsuits almost impossible, others like Louisiana spread the risk out over the entire profession, and others like Illinois that strongly favor the lawyers.

FWIW I like that. I'm enough of a libertarian to believe that the worst possible thing to happen to any kind of issue is for it to be federalized, even if the decision that federalized it is one that I agree with. We don't need national medical malpractice reform.

Also, have medical costs actually significantly decreased in Texas as a result of their aggressive malpractice reform? It seems like we have a pretty good case study, does it actually work?

The problem with the state-by-state approach is that we have a system in which malpractice laws are set at a state level, and the costs of defensive medicine are federalized through national programs like medicare. While I am a proponent of federalism, this is one instance in which we need a national standard that will protect physicians and free them to use their clinical judgement in a reasonable way.
 
The problem with the state-by-state approach is that we have a system in which malpractice laws are set at a state level, and the costs of defensive medicine are federalized through national programs like medicare. While I am a proponent of federalism, this is one instance in which we need a national standard that will protect physicians and free them to use their clinical judgement in a reasonable way.

The other concern with a state-by-state approach is the increasingly common use of EMTALA as a makpractice statute to file in federal court. This month's Emergency Medicine News had a piece on the phenomenon.
 
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