Bfgrn
Gold Member
- Apr 4, 2009
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Undermine the justice system? Wake up. A patient can reach into their doctor's pocket and pull out $5,000-$10,000 at any time regardless of wrongdoing. Since it costs doctors MORE in time out of work, they just settle to make the bogus claim go away. Should such a setup exist in our wonderful justice system?But the bigger picture is why are people on the right so willing to undermine our justice system for doctors, corporations and polluters? If someone files a lawsuit, shouldn't a jury of our peers be able to determine if it is valid or frivolous?
Or perhaps we should focus on your latter sentence. When a doctor is sued, are they EVER tried by a jury of their peers? No, of course not. In a medical lawsuit, there is an average of ZERO doctors on the jury. So you take topics that require a decade of education and training and let them be settled by people with no knowledge of it.
Except that is NOT the focus of tort reform. What you are describing is tort abolition. No proponent of tort reform has EVER suggested that patients who were wrongly treated should go without fair compensation. No one. The only people who EVER bring that up are people who don't understand the topic.Tort reform IS government intervention. It's bureaucrats dictating what a jury of our peers can or can't do. It undermines our justice system and gives the big guy a baseball bat he can use to beat the final measure of injustice into the little guy. Not only does the person or family suffer from the results of the doctor mistake or negligence, or the corporate toxins or dangerous product, the person and family must also endure the measure of the final insult: 'Yes, you were gravely wronged, but you will not justly compensated'
The two focuses of tort reform have large focused on removing the ability of patients to sue doctors for a set of documented setups that doctors that have been proven not to be malpractice, and making the loser of lawsuits pay for expenses of the case. It means that everyone acknowledges that it's sad when your baby comes out misshapen, but maybe you should blame the doctor less and reconsider why you snorted crack off of rotting meat when pregnant. If a surgeon cuts the wrong limb, they should be sued, even under the proposed tort reform.
It's clear you don't actually understand the facts behind this issue. I recommend you do a bit more unbiased reading before returning to this thread.
What a litany of doctor ass licking and utter bullshit. Almost 250 human beings die every DAY because in a 'decade of education and training' theses doctors can't even learn to wash their hands? My mother taught me that as a kid.
Not only don't you know what tort reform is, you don't even understand our justice system and what a jury of our peers means. It does NOT mean a jury of citizens with a vested interest, bias or conflict of interest. It means a fair trial by a jury of citizens withOUT a vested interest, bias or conflict of interest.
Tort reform is an effort to LIMIT or CAP the amount of compensation a person or family can receive, no matter how egregious and devastating the MALpractice is to a patient. I remember watching on C-Span in 2005 as Republicans argue on the floor of the Senate to limit the amount of compensation a person or family can receive to $250,000 as a lifetime amount. THAT is bureaucrats dictating what a jury of our peers can or can't do. It means no matter the circumstances and REAL cost to a family who would have to take care of a child or family member from birth to grave, bureaucrats dictate they can only receive $250,000, a measly amount if you amortize that over a human beings lifetime and the exorbitant costs that can be incurred. A JURY should decide the amount of compensation based on the facts of the case, not some Politburo. THAT is how our justice system is supposed to work, every citizen has the right to a FAIR trial.
It amazes me how you folks on the right say you are against government intervention into people's lives; then you embrace the most egregious and overbearing government intervention into people's lives and bureaucrats dictating that is right out of the Soviet Union.
BTW, the same doctors have no problem taking HMO's and insurance companies to court.
Take a look at the record of a host of state medical societies, often joined by the American Medical Association (AMA), who complain about lawsuits and argue that compensation to injured patients should be severely limited. Yet when an HMO, a health insurer or even an auto insurance company has treated doctors unfairly, these doctors go straight to court. And to top it off, while lobbying to limit patients ability to sue and collect compensation from doctors who commit malpractice, they say it is unfair to limit their right to sue and collect compensation from HMOs and health insurers.
Whats more, ask most doctors and theyll tell you they want to limit compensation for injured patients to $250,000 for non-economic losses like permanent disfigurement, loss of a limb, blindness, or pain and suffering. Yet doctors are among the highest paid professionals in the country. When one looks at publicly available annual salary records for some of the critics of injured patients who sue, one finds that they earn well over $250,000 a year without any pain or suffering at all.
More - http://www.centerjd.org/archives/issues-facts/MDHypocrites.pdf