Just how many doctors have given up medicine because of malpractice awards

[chelsea0011]

Bush uses this as a given. What statistics is he using? I don't know which is the bigger lie....social security is in the toilet and needs those Bush reforms, or rising medical costs happen because of malpractice awards.

[bluestateguy]

1. My other favorite myth

That "thousands" of farmers had to sell their farms because the mean 'ol government made them pay an estate tax.

[SharonAnn]

87. Not one single family lost a farm due to Estate Tax - Honest!

The National Farm Association (or something like that) which is a non-partisan, family farm supporting organization that has existed for decades did a study of it.

Not one single family!

It's all a lie, just like the rest of the stuff in the GOP echo chamber.

[74dodgedart]

2. I don't think I've ever met a "poor" doctor..

[mainer]

73. They're not getting rich either, though

Most primary care docs are making somewhere around $120,000 to $175,000. Why do people complain about a salary like that when business execs are making way way more?

[74dodgedart]

74. I don't complain about it...But they are hardly being broken by insurance

costs....

How many small business people would like to make 120000-175000 a year ?

Don't the costs of higher insurance premiums end up getting passed along to the consumers ?

[BattyDem]

3. Doctors give up medicine because of malpractice INSURANCE rates

Putting a cap on the cost of insurance would help the problem. Putting a cap on malpractice awards simply guarantees that insurance companies will insure more bad doctors because their financial risk will be minimal.

[IStriker]

9. Companies will stop selling malpractice if you cap their premium...

and allow the awards to remain uncapped. The insurers would just move to another state that didn't have caps. If you place a national cap on the premium amounts, the insurance cos. will just stop selling malpractice altogether and no MD would risk (at least in most areas like surgery, OB-GYN, etc.) practicing with no coverage.

[vpigrad]

13. No.

> Companies will stop selling malpractice

No, not if you don't allow them to.

> no MD would risk (at least in most areas like surgery, OB-GYN, etc.) practicing with no coverage.

Hey, I work without the ridiculous luxury of not being responsible for my own mistake. Why shouldn't doctors?

[IStriker]

19. OK. They'll stay in business until they go bankrupt and then the gov't...

can assume their liability. Just what the gov't needs to go with unfunded social security, unfunded pensions, etc.

Are people's lives in your hands? Where I live (W PA) pregnant women get to drive about 60 mis. in labor now if they live in suburban counties to the city where you will find an OB-GYN to deliver the baby. The community hospitals have closed their maternity wards because there are no MD's in the outlying counties with coverage anymore. What do you think they will do (have it on their own?) if the MD's at city hospitals have no coverage?

[Pepperbelly]

27. the real problem with the rates isn't malpractice awards ...

the real problem is that the insurance companies were invested heavily in the stock market in the 90s and lost their asses and now, they are recouping through raising premiums. What is terrible about it is that no one is doing anything about the REAL cause.

These guys were able to basically take high risk investments at no risk at all. Gambling with the house's money. The house takes the risk, the gambler the profit. What the heck kind of deal is that?

[IStriker]

31. If it is not against the law, insurance cos. have every right to invest...

the same as any other business. Around the mid-80's the state treasurer in WV took $ 230 million in teachers' pension funds and invested all of it in derivatives. He lost every penny. Same thing happened in Orange Co., CA and they went bankrupt. If businesses lose their investment, they jack up rates to recoup; if gov't loses the $, they raise your taxes. Gov't is a no lose situation for the people who lose the $; private businesses would fire whoever makes bad investments that works for them and then probably sue them to try to recover what they can. My school taxes doubled last year and will double this year - they made bad investments and somebody (taxpayers) must make it up so the teachers, etc. are paid.

"What the heck kind of deal is that?" It may be a raw deal, but it isn't illegal and it's very common.

[Pepperbelly]

33. But they do not have the right to invest in highly speculative stocks and

then raise their premiums to make up for bad judgement and then have the unmitigated GALL to start a deceptive campaign trying to blame judgements for their malfeasence.

[spooky3]

47. nor to go ask Big Brother for a bailout for their "free market" mistakes.

[IStriker]

89. Raising premiums on your customers is NOT going to the taxpayer...

for a bailout. When some govt. employee makes a really BAD investment of taxpayer money, they come back to the taxpayer and demand more to cover their mistakes. The taxpayer HAS to pay again. The person buying insurance or whatever product the co. makes doesn't have to buy the product from them. They are free to go elsewhere. Big difference in my book.

[spooky3]

98. Asking the government to impose artificial controls on

lawsuits and damage awards IS A BAILOUT, particularly when there is evidence that investment decisions and the general downturn of the market and NOT lawsuits are the factors that are causing insurers to raise malpractice premiums. And since a federal law limiting suits would affect all consumers and insurance companies, consumers are NOT free to go elsewhere.

Part of the "free market" process is that lawsuits and other consumer actions prevent wrongdoers from externalizing their costs onto people unfairly and instead forces wrongdoers to pay more of their own costs.

You might want to take a few basic economics courses.

[IStriker]

99. I don't believe the malpractice insurance cos. are asking the govt....

to cap damage awards. It is MD's who are asking for the limit. Since the consumers of malpractice insurance ARE MD's, they are free to go elsewhere to purchase insurance which is just what they are doing by going to other states where the premiums are cheaper.

Perhaps it would be advisable for you to get a better understanding of the FACTS of the situation. I don't know where you obtained your degree in Economics. Would you care to know where I obtained mine?

[IStriker]

86. Sez who?

[annabanana]

59. just because it's LEGAL doesn't make it RIGHT

or moral, or even that is SHOULD be legal.....

"Hey, It's legal" is the worst possible justification..
(esp when the laws have been written by the industry)

[IStriker]

88. Fix the govt that has taxpayers over the barrel...

then you can fix private cos. If you can't get my local school people to be more responsible (and they're not going to pass a law to make themselves behave) then I doubt that you'll be able to get any legislature to pass a law forbidding private cos. to invest any extra capital they have in whatever they choose to invest it in. It is THEIR money and they only have to answer to whoever owns the co. or stock in it; on the other hand, the invested tax money does NOT belong to the people investing it.

[RafterMan]

32. Not so

Their gains in the stock market were previously allowing them to fund a loss on premiums vs. payouts.

Have a look at this (page 5):

http://www.actuaries.asn.au/PublicSite/pdf/ac02papersp12grace.pdf

The "combined ratio" is expenses and payouts divided by premiums. You can see for most years, it is above 100, meaning insurance companies lost money on the insurance business. Meaning, without the gains from the money they held, they would have had to raise premiums long ago.

[Pepperbelly]

34. but what you cannot tell is what they were expensing.

During the relevant time frame, the accounting regs were ... as we know now ... very lax and subject to gross manipulation.

BTW, I could not get the link to work. For some reason, it did not want to boot Adobe, said it was downloading and then --poof-- nothing but a Done sign in the corner and a blank screen. :shrug:

[spooky3]

51. I'm not following your logic...and please read this Edwards article.

Investment income is an important part of how insurance companies remain profitable, just as it is for some households. It's not incidental or some type of bonus. It's built into their profit structure. Premium income is another important income component. There are many key expense components, many far more significant than malpractice awards, such as labor expenses (including executive compensation), office rent, etc. For the "let's limit awards to the injured" argument to make sense, the proponents need to demonstrate (among other things) that those awards were a bigger factor than other factors and that changes in them recently caused the profit picture to change when the other factors are held constant. The evidence is that investment losses, not malpractice awards, are a much bigger factor in their current woes.

Edwards identifies the real sources of the problems:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13116-2003May19

[Blue Wally]

93. Not recouping their losses

During the hight interest years of the late seventies/earlyeighties and the go-go stock markets of the late eighties and the nineties, insurance companies were able to hold down premiums and "buy in" to policies because they could make so much income investing the premiums. With the rock bottom interest rates, and the stock market decline of 1998-2003, the other income no longer covered losses and the insurance companies had to dramatically raise premiums. Lots of neighborhood swimming pool associations and condominiums are suffering from liability insurance premium shocks as well.

Lots of doctors here in Florida are "going naked". They have signs in their offices to the effect that they are "uninsured". Their intangible assets are placed in irrevocable trusts and their homes are protected by Florida's all-encompassing homestead laws. They are virtually unsueable.

[BattyDem]

17. Award caps should be based upon the damage done

Should a person who is disfigured for life or killed as the result of a mistake get the same amount as someone who was merely inconvenienced?

Let's say there's a $250,000 cap on punitive awards.

If a doctor leaves an instrument inside a patient and they have to operate a second time to retrieve it, that's inconvenient. The patient is fine, other than the trauma of the whole experience. $250,000 is more than fair.

But ... let's say a doctor amputates the wrong limb, leaves a person sterile or screws up so badly that someone dies. $250,000 is nothing!

Putting a cap on damages means an insurance company would be taking the same risk with a bad doctor as they would with a good one. How will that improve the healthcare system?

I disagree that putting a national cap on premiums would cause the insurance companies to stop selling malpractice - there's too much money to be made. But the cap would have to be applied fairly - a doctor with no complaints filed against him should not have to pay the same amount as a doctor with many complaints filed against him, so there should be a cap on the "good" doctor's rates. The more problems with a doctor, the higher the rate cap. That way, good doctors won't be paying for the mistakes of the bad ones.

[cattleman22]

23. Punitive damages not the same as economic damages

I have yet to see even Republicans talk about limiting economic damages. I have seen them talk about limiting punitive and or limiting pain and suffering damages.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

42. That's An Easy One...

Because economic damages are cheaper and easier to quantify...


The goal of civil damage payments is to make the patient whole again...


In the case of the woman who had both her breasts removed because of a mistaken diagnosis her economic damages were small but her non economic damages, the pain and suffering from the disfigurement, were huge...


Would a payment of say, $20,000.00 for breast reconstruction be justice in her case?


Also, punitive damages are different from pain and suffering damages... To win punitivite damages you need to prove that the defendant's behaivor was not only careless but reckless...

[ieoeja]

20. Caps NEVER work.

Currently, medical malpractice is the most profitable type of insurance in the country. And this gouging of physicians is the single biggest financial problem facing the US medical industry.

What this country needs is a non-profit insurer willing to charge reasonable malpractice rates. In other words, the United States government should provide malpractice insurance at rates just high enough to cover costs.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

77. Yeah that's what they threatened to do in Cali with auto insurance

if reforms were passed...reforms were passed in the early 90's..they are all still here

[Blue Wally]

94. They bailed out of windstorm coverage in Florida after Andrew in 1992.

Now there is a state-backed pool for windstorm insurance (and it is expensive as hell).

[robbedvoter]

54. But they DON"T GIVE UP MEDICINE. That was the point.

Of course, this is a scam to benefit insurance companies, who will not lower their fees once the awards cams are established as they lost a lot of their mobey on W's stock market

[leesa]

55. That's nonsense. They give up, which is very rare, because it's an

extremely difficult job with little reward since managed care began. It's become a nightmare of paperwork.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

4. I even know 'Physicians for Kerry' in my family!!!

And they are surgeons! They do complain about the really frivolous junk suits but don't believe that the broken down health system is due to a bunch of trial lawyers. They put more blame on the insurance companies and pharmaceutical company profits.

[BattyDem]

18. You got it!

"They put more blame on the insurance companies and pharmaceutical company profits."

The greed of these companies is driving up the rates. We already know the pharmaceutical companies charge Americans at least three times as much as they do other countries.

[spooky3]

83. Pharmaceuticals are among the most profitable US industries

and the US govt. pays for most of the research and development in the form of grants to researchers at universities and elsewhere. The executive compensation in the pharm. industry is among the highest anywhere. I like to point this out to my Repub. doctor, whom I like, when he makes the case for the pharms.--is his work worth less than 2% of what one of those execs. makes?

[IStriker]

5. A lot have left the worst states and gone to states where insurance...

is cheaper, but I don't know that many have quit medicine except for those who would have retired anyway.

[blueknight]

7. TOTAL BULLSHIT!

i work for a personal injury law firm. these cases are VERY HARD TO WIN and are VERY EXPENSIVE to pursue. the doctors insurance companies have the best defense lawyers in the industry working for them, and UNLIMITED RESOURCES (deep pocket$) you only hear about the huge awards,but most people lose these cases.

[IStriker]

12. It only takes one BIGGIE award and the MD wouldn't be able to buy...

insurance if there was a cap on the premiums. Or a series of out-of-court nuisance settlements and he would be uncovered. Not B.S.; COMMON SENSE! Tort lawyers have as deep a pockets as the insurance cos. if they are worth hiring!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

45. Insurance Defense Lawyers Get Paid By The Hour...

Plaintiff's lawyers only get paid if they win...

[IStriker]

90. So?

[proud2BlibKansan]

37. My cousin is a doctor who moved from one state to another

due to malpractice insurance rates.

So yes, this is happening.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

43. Bush* Never Mentions That Physicians Win 90% Of Cases That Go To Court

Doctors like cops are authority figures...


The presumption of correctness they bring to court is hard to dislodge....

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Dr. Henry "Hacksaw" Himmler quit.

As did Dr. Melvin "Where's my stethoscope?" Blugfort.

Just to name a couple.

[janx]

8. This is no myth. But it's nothing new, either.

The real problem, as I see it, has been insurance companies and HMOs jumping into the act. This has compounded the problem to an indescribable degree.

But you won't hear Chimpy talking about that...

[arnp2000]

16. Most people

don't have a medical backgrounand and can't really understand the problem. But, you're right it's a problem and not a new one!!

[andyhappy]

10. my dad

my dad retired early because people were always trying to sue him and the malpractice insurance was killing him. He was an OBGYN.

Docters are not perfect. People die. Babies are born with problems. Docters are not gods, but with the way things are today they have to perform like gods or risk losing everything each time they operate.

You know that when you go to a docter they do all the stuff and then submit the list of all the tests and procedures they did to the insurance company and then the insurance company goes through that list and picks out what they will and will not pay for.

docters get the shaft from the insurance companies just like everybody else.

[Yupster]

38. I have one client who's an OB/Gyn

He stopped delivering babies because of the lawsuits.

First he stopped taking on teens as clients. Then he stopped altogether. He says he's much happier now.

[Bridget Burke]

65. If he was getting too many lawsuits...

There may have been a reason. It might have been time for him to quit.

[Blue Wally]

96. There is a reason........

Juries have difficulty in discriminating between "maloccurence" or something bad happening, "malpractice" or neglect, and and "malfeasance" or doing something bad.

Take Vioxx, for instance, some members of the test group had heart attacks with more frequency with vioxx than with a placebo. Now the papers are full of solicitations from lawyers looking for people who took Vioxx and later had heart attacks.

People that take Vioxx are usually old (arthritic) and having a heart attack in not an uncommon occurence for an older person. How can you prove that an elderly person with a heart attack had that attack brought on by Vioxx as opposed to the heart attack occuring normally??

[papau]

11. Bush & Malpractice Awards and a GAO study that has no real data!

Bush & Malpractice Awards and a GAO study that has no real data!


MORE GOP PARTIAL TRUTH LIES: Seems Bush has Donald Palmisano, immediate past president of the American Medical Association, saying medical malpractice insurers are paying out more money in court awards than they are taking in and the system must be changed "Everywhere you go the evidence is overwhelming that the system is melting down before our eyes. We have an obligation to fix this system" but the Liab Insurance Company (The Doctor's Company) that he is a director of can do no more than link you to a GAO study that says claims are up - maybe - and because they have no real data - they report conversations with folks in the industry!

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03702.pdf

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-bush-l...

Bush Launches Battle to Limit Malpractice Awards
By REUTERS

Filed at 2:11 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush launches an uphill battle on Wednesday to limit medical malpractice lawsuit awards that he says drive up health care costs, seeking to fulfill a popular re-election promise.

The battle pits powerful groups against each other: trial lawyers against insurance companies and doctors who say rising premiums for malpractice insurance are driving them out of business.

Legislation to cap malpractice awards for pain and suffering passed the House of Representatives last year but stalled in the Senate. Bush is hoping the larger Republican majority will lead his plan to victory this year.<snip>

Bush will start the effort on Wednesday with his first big speech of the new year on a trip to Madison County, Illinois, which the White House called a magnet for so-called ``junk'' lawsuits. Spokesman Scott McClellan said the county was ``the single best place in the country for trial lawyers to sue.''<snip>

[charlie]

14. Malpractice caps don't reduce premiums

The nation's largest insurer raised doctors' premiums 19% 6 months after Texas imposed damage caps, saying they don't incur significant cost savings. It's not the only time that's happened.

Doesn't stop them from dragging out that hoary canard every chance they get, though.

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/insurance/pr/pr004692.php3

[arnp2000]

15. ALOT!

In our county 37 in the last 5 years. That's outrageous!

[tkmorris]

21. How do you know?

The claim is often put forth that malpractice insurance rates are driving doctors out of practice, or at least into other states where rates are lower, and further that the reason rates are so high is the uncapped awards given to malpractice victims.

Strangely though, evidence of this is usually lacking, especially when you examine why rates are high. If rates really are prohibitively high due to the occasional "jackpot" awards than that issue does need to be addressed. You need to show that this is the case first however and usually all I hear is the claim being made without any evidence to demonstrate that it is so.

Furthermore, will capping awards solve the problem by itself? I don't believe it will. I think a far larger problem is the large number of charlatans calling themselves doctors who are part of the pool of doctors being insured. If the worst 5% or so of doctors had their license to practice yanked the number of malpractice cases would drop fairly dramatically I believe, thus ALLOWING a reduction in malpractice insurance rates. Note that I don't think this would neccessarily happen without regulating insurance rates; it is unlikely the insurance companies would voluntarily cut rates on their own.

Anyway, back to step 1. How do you know that 37 doctors in your county have left practice due to malpractice insurance in the last 5 years?

[elehhhhna]

22. link it, please.

[newcombt]

24. ...

I haven't seen many local doctors quitting

[moggie12]

25. MSM may be on top of this

CNN (or MSNBC maybe) had a piece on this earlier today. They showed a huge pie chart with a tiny sliver representing malpractice insurance costs -- it represents .5 percent of health costs according to the data they were using! I love that Bush is shooting himself in the foot with his SS plan and now this nonsense. Keep up the good work, George.

[BrklynLiberal]

26. They cap punitive awards, but not loss of income awards..ergo

if you were injured and earned $40,000 your award will be much less than if you earned $500,000 or $2,000,000 and were injured. You know what that means? The richer people will get the better doctors to take care of them, because the hospitals will be more willing to take chances on the poorer people, because if they do lose a malpractice case...their liability will be less if it is to a poorer person.
Heard this on the radio yesterday.
So as, usual, Bush and his cronies are still looking out for the rich guys.

[elehhhhna]

71. DING DING You WIn! Bingo!

Like the 911 payouts--the more you made the more you get. Whether you have a family to support, etc...who cares? Retired? Stay at home Mom? Already disabled? Young? HA!

[MrMonk]

28. I know one

that's it, just one.

He was a cardiac surgeon who went into medical consulting because he was concerned that the cost of premiums would break him before the time that he could reasonably expect to retire. He still has malpractice insurance, but not at the premiums that practicing surgeons pay.

He claimed that surgeons and OB/GYN's were quitting practice or moving to other states, but at a very low rate. However, he was also the first person to point out to me that (1) malpractice suits were very hard for a plaintiff to win, especially against the caliber of lawyers and funds that the insurance companies had access to; (2) that awards are always negotiated downward to much smaller amounts; (3) that every suit he knew of was at least arguable; (4) that insurance rates were not based on legal costs and awards; and (5) that a large number of suits arose from the actions of a relatively small number of doctors (not him, of course).

In short, he found the rates to be threateningly high, but believed that the crisis had been manufactured.

[txaslftist]

29. If a doctor got sued and had to quit...

it's because at least 10 of 12 jurors said he screwed up. That's after a trial where the jurors get to compare the testimony of experts in his favor and experts against him. The plaintiff -the guy he screwed up on- has the burden of proof.

If that's frivolous, then the whole court system is frivolous, and so is the idea of the rule of law.

If you screw up bad enough that you can't afford to do what you are paid to do, you need to find a new line of work. Who said doctors were sacred, anyway? If I screw up my job, or even driving my car, and someone gets hurt because I screw up, don't I have to compensate them? And if I screw up bad enough with my car, oughtn't I to lose my license?

Why should these doctors be protected from responsibility for their screw ups when I'm not?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

44. You Nailed It...

A jury has the wisdom invested in it to decide whether a man can live or die but according to Bush* it doesn't have the wisdom to decided whether or not a doctor screwed up and and how much his victim can be compensated...

[OhioChick]

58. Well Said.....

Couldn't have said it better, myself!

[Maria Celeste]

30. My OB-GYN is now just a GYN

Said she could no longer afford to deliver babies and stay in private practice.

[napi21]

35. That's the kind of thing I've heard too. They don't quite med. they

change specialty. I've heard it's getting very difficult to find OB's and there are several other specialties too, but I forget which ones.

[shireen]

39. me too

My gyn had to drop the ob part of her practice. The scum wanted $120,000. She cried when she broke the news to her staff. You walk into her office lobby, and the walls are plasted with pictures of babies she delivered. It's really sad.

[robbedvoter]

57. Maybe she should take it with her insurance company.

Any professional dumb enough to be bamboozled by W, is too dumb to assist me with my health.

[Iris]

36. I guess he's using statistics from the same source that says it's "a fact"

that there are hordes of attornies out there filing frivolous medical malpratice suits.

[DaedelusNemo]

40. Malpractice trouble has absolutely nothing to do with torts

The fact is, during the last boom some of the insurance companies got a little irrationally exuberant in writing out new policies, which left them holding more liability than they could deal with when the stock market popped and they lost their fat cushion. It was basically bad business decision-making and there's really nothing for it but for them to have high prices and lower profits for a few years to catch up on the money - or for the stock market to roar again.

Or, they could start using history as a factor when they set their prices for policies, which they currently do not do. 10% of doctors are responsible for 80% of malpractice suits, and the rest of the doctors have to pay for them. Meanwhile, repeat offenders are being subsidized and kept in business.

But they come and tell us that the problem is that these frivolous malpractice cases are out of control, that runaway juries are flinging money like mad. Well,what proportion does that play in the problem, compared to the rest? Have the number of claims increased significantly, has the cost of claims increased significantly?

from the Congressional Budget Office, http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=4968&sequence=0

"edical malpractice premiums charged by insurance companies do not correspond to increases or decreases in payouts, which have been steady for 30 years. Rather, premiums rise and fall in concert with the state of the economy." Medical Malpractice Insurance: Stable Losses/Unstable Rates, Americans for Insurance Reform, under the direction of J. Robert Hunter (Director of Insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, former Federal Insurance Administrator and Texas Insurance Commissioner) October 10, 2002.

"Not only has there been no 'explosion' in medical malpractice payouts at any time during the last 30 years . . .payments (in constant dollars) have been extremely stable and virtually flat since the mid-1980s." Medical Malpractice Insurance: Stable Losses/Unstable Rates, Americans for Insurance Reform, October 10, 2002."

Apparently, claims are virtually nil as a factor here. It is no more than an easy target to absolve some people of their own mistakes.

[Zinfandel]

41. None!

It's exactly like the pigman Limbaugh spewing and force feeding his working class sheep...

Why should the rich have to pay more taxes? "The liberals are trying to penalize the rich, for being rich."

Well, I'd love to be rich and have to pay more and my fair share of taxes.

Than being poor & working class paying more taxes, as it is now.

Which would you choose?

[Catchawave]

46. It's the bottom-feeding lawyers that file nuisance lawsuits...

...that need to be stopped or controlled.

Read John Edwards "Four Trials", to understand Corporate Medicine. Believe me, there's more bad doctors than bad lawyers!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

49. Nuisance Law Suits...

If you file a nuisnance lawsuit which is really a non-meritorious lawsuit you can be liable for paying the legal fees of the party you sue when they move for a summary judgement...

You can also wind up getting disbarred if you do it enough...

[Mend]

48. Many have given up treating high risk patients....

some of the most experienced MD's have retired early, many have adopted strict screening guidelines, many chose low risk fields and low risk treatment options. The biggest change has been in the choice of medicine as a career...there is some evidence that the brightest (possibly not the best, but definitely the highest achieving students) won't touch medicine as a career with a ten-foot pole.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

50. Where Would They Go To Make The Big Bucks Then?

I have yet to meet a poor doctor...


My cousin is an engineer at a major Long Island hospital....



We were talking about doctors in 1981 or so and he said a doctor who isn't making $100,000.00 a year is "getting fucked in his ear"...



Do a google search...


The median income for a physician is around $300,000,00 a year now...


I'm not saying I or other people are smart enough or would work that hard or make the sacrifices to make that kind of money but it is a lot of money...

[Mend]

52. They are getting MBA's and going into corporations....

they are getting law degrees, they are getting both....These are the brightest of the bright people and they can do anything and they are. Around my neighborhood the top lawyers out-earn the top doctors easily and they don't have the sword of lawsuits hanging over their heads. If you all really think you can continue to squeeze doctors with threats, lowered or flat incomes, sneers and jeers, and still have the majority of the brightest sayiing it is a great professional choice, I say you are wrong and the medical schools have already seen this for years now.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

53. Nobody Is Denigrading Their Profession

but they should be responsible for their actions like everybody else....



I don't think intellligence in one area means you are intelligent in all areas...

Just because one is smart enough to be a physician doesn't mean one is one smart enough to be a lawyer or vice versa...

[robbedvoter]

56. Are they now? Or running the senate? Oh, smart doctors!

You will rule the world! Not!

In fact doctors are renown as worst businessmen - tend to misinvest their loot. And for any educated person to fall for the GOP ploy and not see the insurance companies behind it all - sorry, just as smart as your average redneck voting against interest to stick it to the gays....

[Sgent]

60. By your own quote

Platiffs lose 90% of jury trials, and many more never make it to trial.

If plantiff attorney's are taking on such frivilous cases, and the court system is not throwing them out, then there needs to be some type of reform.

I have a whole slew of both antecedants and facts about malpractice in Mississippi.

I can tell you this much, since passage of reform there hasn't been an increase in 2 years -- vs. 40% a year previously. In addition, there is now more than one insurance company that writes malpractice, and they are writing new policies. Previously, the one company who hadn't left the state wasn't accepting new physicians.

Wine about the problems you percieve with caps -- and I agree that they are a bandaid -- but don't say everything is hunky dory when people in my state were driving 150 miles to the nearest delivery room, and over 50 OB/GYNs in the last 3 years had left the state (in a state with about 300 total).

[DemocratSinceBirth]

61. Just Because A Plaintiff Loses His Case Doesn't Mean It Wasn't Meritorious

The doctors always enter the courtroom with the presumption of correctness...


Caps are unfair to folks who have been injured by the mistakes of others...


It the job of the law to make them whole....


Or we can always go back to the rule of the jungle...

[grumpy old fart]

63. It's the Insurance companies, not the lawsuits.

The companies are just trying to keep the high profits they were making in the 90's, and the only way they can do that is by keeping, or raising, the high premiums. Lawsuits never make it to juries without some merit. The only thing caps on awards accomplish is to punish victims.

[grumpy old fart]

66. Yep....

Lets see, rich insurance companies, rich doctors, the problem must be the damn quad lying in a bed the rest of his life on feeding tubes. If only these damn lawyers would stop trying to help people.

[grumpy old fart]

68. The point is, their ire is misdirected....

It's the INSURANCE PREMIUMS that are allegedly killing them, and those rates have much more to do with a tiny percentage of bad doctors and Enronesque corporate practices than with "frivolous" lawsuits. Frivolous lawsuits cost Plaintiff's lawyers money and are routinely tossed out early. The only one's punished by caps are the grievously injured.

[Coastie for Truth]

62. Harvard Med School's Steffi Woolhandler, MD, says--

1. In Massachusetts 0.25% (one quarter of one percent, one out of four hundred) doctors are responsible for over 13% of all malpractice (not claims, just malpractice).

2. Woolhandler and her group (including Prof Himmelstein) have calculated that if this 1/4 of one percent of docs lost their license, it would significantly reduce the cost of malpractice insurance.

3. VP candidate John Edwards - and several other Democrat Senators - have recommended disbarment for any lawyer who has sanctions applied more then three times under Federal Rule 11 for filing frivolous law suits.

4. My own experience (I am a defense guy - represent the big guys - the medical equipment manufacturers) is that the actual malpractice is not the issue -- it is the post adverse outcome cover-up

BUSH LIES - PEOPLE DIE

BUSH LIES - PEOPLE LOSE THEIR SOCIAL CONTRACT SAFETY NET

BUSH LIES - PEOPLE ARE NO LONGER PROTECTED FROM BAD PHARMACEUTICALS

BUSH LIES - FORMER FDA LAWYER DANNIE TROY USES OUR TAX DOLLARS (ULTRA VIRES) TO DEFEND "BIG PHARMA"

HEY DUDE - QUIT STEALING MY CLIENTS

CLINTON LIED - NOBODY DIED - BFD

[grumpy old fart]

64. A Defense Lawyer openly with us? Welcome Brother.

I work the other side of the street, and mostly see "Heart of Darkness" types. Thanks for your intellectual honesty in this witch hunt.

[Bridget Burke]

67. So far, nobody has presented hard data.

Just anecdotal evidence.

[grumpy old fart]

69. Here, have some facts....

http://www.atla.org/ConsumerMediaResources/Tier3/press_room/FACTS/medmal/medmal.aspx

[Bridget Burke]

70. Where does this show how many doctors have been driven out of medicine?

Hint: I really don't think that many have.

I was challenging the "tort reformers" to come up with more than "somebody my uncle knows."

[grumpy old fart]

76. Some facts about "fleeing" B.S.

http://www.atla.org/ConsumerMediaResources/Tier3/press_room/FACTS/medmal/DoctorsNotFleeing_0704.aspx

[Bridget Burke]

79. As I thought.....

No real evidence. Just stories about "my aunt's gynecologist".

[mainer]

72. They don't quit; they just move to different states

That happened in the Las Vegas area, I believe, when OB-Gyn's just picked up and moved elsewhere. Leaving an area horribly under-served.

[grumpy old fart]

75. And they are not driven away by lawsuits.....

They are driven away by INSURANCE COMPANIES.

[Bridget Burke]

80. And the story was printed in which newspaper?

We'd all love to see the evidence.

[Rockerdem]

81. If BushCo is just blowing smoke, then it wont resonate

When it comes to important things like obgyn and surgery, people arent fooled by some blowhard in DC, regardless of party affiliation. People know whether they have a hard time finding doctors or surgeons at critical times in their lives, or whether the name is different on the shingle each time that they go in for a visit. If it really is a problem, Bush will win. If not, he'll lose badly.

The real medical crunch is coming on down the line when the Baby Boomers start using their Medicare. Service will be atrocious and hospital morale, already bad, will collapse. My sister operates scan machines, and is a burnout case. The work is hard and many patients are crochety and difficult. She's making near six figures, because she works 60 hours a week and is always on call. Co-workers keep leaving because they cant handle the job. And this is a picnic compare to what its going to be like in 10 years and onward. A mess bigger than Iraq.

[newportdadde]

78. I talked to my ear nose and throat doctor

about this and she mentioned an anthiesiologist who left because of the insurance supposedly. She also mentioned when she started practicing it was 20k for her, now its 40k, I figure she is in her late 40s. She also mentioned surprise surprise that for some reason in the late 90s her premiums barely moved.

So either all of the sudden 'frivalous' lawsuits are on the uprise or there is something else at work here... that being the stock market.

Insurance companies are one of the only companies who will never loose money. They will pass on any loses in higher premiums and during the 90s when investments were skyrocketing they were flush with cash not so now. But unlike other companies which go out of business for bad decisions, investments, or cut workforce, merge etc.. insurance companies just pass the buck.

Most lawsuits are not frivilous and those that are will be thrown out.. if you have ever dealt with an attorney they aren't crazy about investing time in bad cases, it too costly especially if they are working on a percentage and if they loose they get nothing.

[rodeodance]

82. Instilling fear is the tactic for the WH-and it works! They do not

need facts-and if information is given is it is spin, lies and distortions. 51% of the people are instilled!!

[Rockerdem]

84. In some case yes, others no

In some issues where people REALLY pay attention, its hard to blow smoke. Iraq has become like that. The same is for peoples serious health issues.

No one was fooled by Bushs free pill scheme, for instance. If doctor shortage caused by high insurance rates isnt a problem as he says, the issue will die quickly. About serious close to home issues like this, PEOPLE KNOW.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

85. The Problem Is Insurance Companies Charge Doctors The Same Rates...

A doctor with five claims pays as much as a doctor with one claim...

[ChiciB1]

91. Let's Get To The Real Truth Though

Even though doctors certainly aren't in my income bracket, the Insurance Companies are making a KILLING!

I just read an article in my local paper here in Florida about how MUCH our homeowners insurance will be going up. We know why... the hurricanes. But they don't need much of an excuse. When Andrew hit the last time, the insurance companies couldn't run fast enought to get out of this state!! You may as well be saying ENRON, HALLIBURTON AND INSURANCE COMPANIES all in the same breath!!

The quote of the rate hike is around 25% to 28%! I'm already paying well over $1600.00 for a relatively medium sized home. Actually, probably a small home... only 1325 sq. ft.

[Blue_Tires]

92. it needs to be said that

my father (ob/gyn) will be going into early retirement because of the insurance costs (He turns 63 this year, so he obviously wasn't going to be working forever, but he tells me that the insurance payment of almost $40,000 annually is just too much)

[Ramsey]

95. $150,000 Premiums

That's what individual specialists like neurosurgeons have to pay in malpractice insurance rates per year in states like Pennsylvania.

There are some high risk specialties which are highly likely to be sued (several surgical specialties, obstetricians) and they get gouged.

I think most people would agree rates like that are incompatible with running a practice. These doctors leave these states, at least if they are in private practice. At the hospital where I work, a major university hospital, we self-insure and spread the cost and even then we've had a major attrition rate in Ob-Gyn, because they couldn't then pay competitive salaries. Private practice obstetricians have left the state in droves, and most of those who remain won't deliver babies, only see routine gyn patients.

I've heard stories of early retirements, people leaving patient care to go to industry or pharma, and people going to other states. It's been pretty bad in Pennsylvania actually.

However, I don't blame large malpractice awards, because I think they are uncommon. I don't believe in caps, at least not at the $250,000 level, although I might support a more generous or graduated cap for non-economic damages. I thought Kerry & Edwards had a good plan to reduce insurance rates and frivolous suits, putting responsibility on the shoulders of the lawyers, the medical profession and the insurers.

Caps alone will not do mush to alleviate the problem, and may hurt victims of negligence. States that have implemented them have corroborated this. We need a multi-prong solution.

[Blue Wally]

97. We need a multi-prong solution.

How about we:

1. Expand medicare to cover everybody from cradle to grave. Use a national VAT to p
2. All doctors who agree to accept Medicare rates and are paid though Medicare are conisdered to be "agents of the government" and covered by the doctrine of Sovereiogn Immunity.

3. Victims of malpractice file claims against Medicare. Medicare evaluates claims and eliminates doctors who are prone to malpractice by taking away licenses.

4. Victims filing successful claims are paid by Medicare claims adjudicators.

5. Lawyers can searchg for new ground to plow.

6. Insurance companies can stick to auto and home insurance.