Tort Reform and Physician Activism

[Maddy McCall]

I live in a southern state where tort reform has emerged as a huge issue in the current election term. Here is what distresses me most about the way the issue plays out in people's everyday lives.

I go to my physician for an illness. In his office are signs, phamplets, notices that informs me that if I don't support tort reform, he may be forced to raise his prices, or, worse, abandon his practice, thus leaving my region even more underserviced by physicians. Therefore, he urges me to support Republican candidates, because they can impose tort reform, which, according to him, will lower his insurance fees and allow him to continue practicing in my area.

Now, I am pretty well-informed on the topic, so his pleas and Republican propaganda don't influence me. However, it causes a little resentment on my part that the physician I should trust is pushing this down my throat.

The bad thing: Just think about how many people completely TRUST their physicians, so, "My doc wouldn't lie to me, would he?" Therefore, vicariously, they become supporters of tort reform even though they know NOTHING about the topic. I have talked to people who tell me they support tort reform, and when further pressed, they can't even begin to tell me what it means.

It is really troubling that doctors can influence their patients in this way. YOu would like to think that you can at least go to the physician without being bombarded by Republican propaganda, right?

[Cocoa]

1. that sounds unethical

and unprofessional.

You're right, a lot of people don't realize that their interests don't always agree with doctors. In a lot of ways, it's an adversarial relationship.

Same goes for bosses. It rubs me the wrong way when bosses are pushy about politics.

[Faygo Kid]

2. You're right - and the docs are dupes

They march in lockstep with the insurance industry on this issue, and the insurance industry does not lower rates where tort "reform" has been enacted. Or, they lower them briefly only to raise them later. By the way, if the docs put 1/100th of the effort they set forth advocating tort "reform" on behalf of getting rid of or effectively disciplining the minority of bad docs who are hurting the majority good ones, they would save themselves a lot of grief - and some lives, too.

[Maddy McCall]

4. here here

I agree with EVERYTHING you said. If the dumbass doc who told me I didn't need knee surgery on a multiple break in my tib-fib would have spent as much time looking at my x-rays as participating in right-wing activism, then possibly he would have made the correct diagnosis.

I didn't sue--I voted with my wallet and found a new physician who isn't so politically vocal. He made the right diagnosis.

[Ilsa]

3. I was peeved about seeing stickers for prop 12

pasted everywhere in my ob/gyn's office last time I had an exam. Fortunately, they didn't promote any political candidates.

I'm convinced tort reform isn't in most people's best interests. There has to be a financial incentive for organizations to behave in the patients' interest. Doctors need to be disciplined better by their own organizations, IMO, among other things.

[pansypoo53219]

5. maybe if they did the right thing

by getting rid of incompitant doctors, they wouldn't have this trouble.