Corp Reform - Not Tort Reform

The Bush Campaign is Always Looking For Ways to Help Pharmaceuticals

Thought this was a funny article.

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A campaign worker for President Bush said on Thursday American workers unhappy with low-quality jobs should find new ones -- or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel better. "

Medical Errors - Sixth Leading Cause of Death

Yahoo released this article about the grim stastics of medical malpractice. Healthgrades, Inc. studied medical malpractice statistics and found the following:

"Of the total 323,993 deaths among Medicare patients in those years who developed one or more patient-safety incidents, 263,864, or 81 percent, of these deaths were directly attributable to the incidents," it added.

"One in every four Medicare patients who were hospitalized from 2000 to 2002 and experienced a patient-safety incident died."

As scary as those statistics are, how about this:

"If the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's annual list of leading causes of death included medical errors, it would show up as number six, ahead of diabetes, pneumonia, Alzheimer's disease and renal disease," Collier said."

And yet the only medical malpractice laws that are ever proposed are those that limit the rights of malpractice victims. How about some laws to make patients safer?

Good article about Edwards

CNN has a good article here about why doctors shouldn't be afraid of Edwards.

This quote about tort reform asks a very good question:

"Why should the most unfortunate -- the disabled, the suffering, the severely ill -- forego compensation? It seems mean-spirited to ask those who have lost the most to bear the brunt."

Some doctors have taken the hypocritic oath...

This article at Yahoo explains how some doctors want to be able to refuse treatment (except in case of emergency) to lawyers and their support staff. Here's an excerpt:

"The issue of doctors refusing to treat plaintiffs attorneys gained prominence last month when South Carolina doctor J. Chris Hawk, a delegate at the American Medical Association annual meeting in Chicago, proposed a resolution that -- except in emergencies -- would make it ethical to refuse care to plaintiffs attorneys and their spouses. The proposal died after being denounced by several AMA delegates during a heated debate. "

I wonder if the same doctors that support that resolution would consider hiring a plaintiff's lawyer if they were the victim of malpractice? Or if they were sued for divorce?

The animosity between doctors and lawyers, or rather from doctors to lawyers is uncalled for, unprofessional, and hurts everyone.

A New Rand Group Study About Medical Malpractice & Tort Reform

This article details some of the findings of a new Rand Group study of medical malpractice jury awards in California.

In California, medical malpractice suits are capped at $250,000. That figure seems to be the magic number that most tort reformers aim for. But this study shows that few lawsuits end in verdicts that would be reduced by a $250,000 cap. For example:

42% of death cases didn't receive verdicts of $250,000 or more. Of those that did, the average reduction was 49%, meaning that in most cases where someone died due to medical malpractice, juries didn't even award $500,000.

And this is in "liberal California," the home of the "runaway jury."