It takes from 3 to 5 years for a filed malpratice case to reach settlement or a courtroom. This isn’t anecdotal or speculative – it’s fact. And everyone, from trial lawyers to doctors, knows it.

Cases which will be affected by Georgia’s new law won’t be settled, decided or paid out for at LEAST two to three more years.

Cases which are currently adjudicated in Georgia courts were filed several years ago, and as such, are NOT AFFECTED by the new law. Premiums are based on potential payouts and defense costs for cases which are being adjudicated NOW. When payouts and defense costs drop, so will premiums – but not before then.

And that’s assuming, of course, that there isn’t a constitutional challenge to the new laws, which will make it take even LONGER for premiums to fall. Texas did it right in 2003, passing both legislation AND a constitutional amendmentment, and has seen some companies lower premiums 22% since then…

For ANYONE, doctor or lawyer, to suggest that Georgia’s new malpractice measures have failed because rates haven’t dropped is indicative either of unbelievable ignorance or deliberate dishonesty

It takes from 3 to 5 years for a filed malpratice case to reach settlement or a courtroom. This isn’t anecdotal or speculative – it’s fact. And everyone, from trial lawyers to doctors, knows it.

Cases which will be affected by Georgia’s new law won’t be settled, decided or paid out for at LEAST two to three more years.

Cases which are currently adjudicated in Georgia courts were filed several years ago, and as such, are NOT AFFECTED BY THE NEW LAWS. Premiums are based on potential payouts and defense costs for cases which are being adjudicated NOW. If payouts and defense costs fall as a result of limits, THEN companies will be able to reduce premiums.

That’s assuming, of course, that there isn’t a constitutional challenge to the new laws, which will make it take even LONGER for premiums to fall. Texas did it right in 2003, passing both legislation AND a constitutional amendmentment, and has seen some companies lower premiums 22% since then…

For ANYONE, doctor or lawyer or legislator, to claim that Georgia’s new malpractice measures have failed because rates haven’t been reduced within a year of their passage is indicative of either unbelievable ignorance or deliberate dishonesty

Bill, no one is denying that there are doctors out there who engage in negligent acts, but that’s where the existing tort laws come into play. The torts are there to make sure those negligent provdiders pay for their mistakes.

However, the current tort system is designed in such a way where all providers, including the far majority of them who are not negligent, suffer from the mistakes of a few. This is not fair to them, nor is it beneficial to our healthcare system in general, which has direct affects on all of us … even you, Bill.

And, again … I know you can’t argue with anything meaningful when you start calling names. Thanks for the confirmation. You’ve earned your reputation well, Bill.

And, Bill, I’m not criticizing you, but you can hardly deny that you will do anything to criticize your opponents, even if that apparently means criticizing good policy.

Finally, you can call me names all you want, but I just assume that if that is your defense, then my point has been made and you can’t really refute it.

Wire, you, on the other hand, are just a pussy who hides behind a pseudonym. Who the hell are you to criticize me?

You are just trying to find whatever you can to bash Tom Price. You don’t even have a political basis … you just want to criticize people you don’t like.

I don’t wish any harm or sickness on anyone (with exception of terrorists), espcially Mrs. Edwards, but John Edwards can never blame lack of quality care for anything that might happen to his wife. Further, he is not completely removed from part of the reason why healthcare in this country has declined.

It’s interesting you bring up women’s care, though, b/c this issue has a DIRECT IMPACT on the care women get. OB/GYNs are being hit by malpractice premiums the hardest. In many parts of the country, especially in rural areas, many OB/GYNs are leaving practice, making it to where there are no doctors for women in those areas. This has a huge effect on the healthcare system, and leaves thousands of women without vital medical care, or requiring them to travel long distances for that care. Since this trend came along in the last decade, we have seen a steady decline in prenatal and parenatal care, along with a decline in health of young children in many of these areas.

I know it hits home for John Edwards, but it hits home for all of us.

It’s not simple, Mrs K, it’s very complicated in fact, and John Edwards is part of the equation that has made it more complicated.

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm

In it you will see that the women initially asked only for McDonald’s to pay for her medical costs, which were about $20,000. When McDonald’s said no, she had no recourse available but to sue the company. During the discovery period of the case, the court learned that McDonald’s was knowingly serving it’s coffee too high. The court awarded her $160,000 damages plus around $2 million for pain and suffering.

By the way, that amount equalled about what McDonalds made selling coffee in only 2 days. Seems pretty fair to me, except in reality the two parties entered into a settlement (certainly for less money) of which we don’t know the amount.

Since practically every opponent of the civil justice system puts out the McDonald’s case front and center as a reason why the system needs reform, excuse me if I have a hard time believing that they have a well formed reasoned argument. It’s so easy to Google and get the facts on this one case, yet it’s easier to either not know or pretend you don’t because it makes a pretty good straw man for the ill informed.

Now onto something I really care about — who can I sue to get fix the Atlanta Braves?

As for liability reform, you assume too much … you assume that business is not struggling from this burden – you assume that providers are not struggling – you assume there are not many of these frivolous cases. All of these things are wrong assumptions, and we all know what assumptions make us look like.

These cases settle out of court EVERY SINGLE DAY a thousand times over. These frivolous suits are driving doctors out of practice in droves. These frivolous lawsuits are costing more for providers, but more importantly, they are costing YOU more in that the more payers drive up costs for providers, the more costs are driven up for the healthcare services themselves, which costs you money as a patient and employers have to pay much more in coverage costs, which again translates into you paying more b/c those costs are taken out of your paycheck in benefits.

So, you see, you and your boy John Edwards are advocates of higher healthcare costs and a steady decline in quality healthcare services.

It is one step toward comprehensive reform.

And Iraq? What are you talking about? See if you can follow this logic:

The average malpractice payout per doctor in states with caps has gone up 24%

But in states without caps it’s gone up 54%! So caps appear to have had some effect on keeping payouts down. (since 1992 controlling for inflation)

First of all, MAG which represents most of Georgia’s doctors has had a policy in place for a long time where they DO NOT SETTLE. So every one of their cases goes to trial and gets a jury verdict. Some doctors have argued that this is a bad policy to have (if they are guilty it is generally in their interest to settle) but this just doesn’t happen.

If you owned a corporation would you give someone $50 million if you didn’t think you were liable? That’s just not how I operate (or anyone else I know). Settlements are an admission of guilt, so I don’t know why we should feel so sorry for a bunch of people who admitted their liability.

If there is one problem with the way the process works then I think it might be the process by which one person might get a large settlement while the same thing that happened to a lot of others and they weren’t able to get justice. But I hardly think anyone on here wants class action to come to medical malpractice.

I’d like to bring up your McDonalds story. I know dittoheads love to focus on this story as one of the terrible things in American legal history. Here is what actually happened: Someone was burned by scalding hot coffee that was being served well above the temperature that coffee should be served at. During the discovery phase of the trial, the court and jury learned that McDonalds had ignored repeated complaints about this exact problem. Did one person get “lucky” and get a big verdict out of this happening to them? Yes. But the court system can bring relief for a larger problem that other government agencies are ignoring.

How much do you want to bet that after paying that one settlement, McDonalds made sure their coffee was being served at a non dangerous temperature in all of its stores, which in turn protected American consumers from untold millions of dollars of burn treatments and headaches, not to mention protecting the McDonalds corporation from future legal troubles.

I apologize but I just refuse to believe American business, with all the power it has within our government, is being brought to its knees by frivolous lawsuits that have no merit. If you think that’s the case then you must live in a different world than me.

Granted, doctors do make mistakes and that is why there must be a torts process, but the far majority of these are found to be untrue, and they are settled out of court with doctors and insurers paying millions of dollars so they do not have to go through a trial.

You can compare it the Macdonalds thing … this isn’t a case for doctors, but it’s like the person suing Ronald Mcdonald b/c the coffee was too hot.

Same thing in medical liability … a patient goes to the ER and says his bed pan wasn’t changed often enough and that caused him life long mental stress and health damages, which can only be covered by a $100mm settlement, b/c that’s the only thing that can solve the issue of him having to hold his pee pee for a while. So, an ambulance chasing graduate of Bozo Night Law School, who is also a charter member of the national trial lawyers association and big supporter of John Edwards, comes along and says, let me represent you on this case, b/c not only did having to wait on a bed pan cause great mental stress, but it also caused family problems, and I think we can go ahead and ask for $200mm, and we are confident that the hospital will settle out of court, in which case you will probably get $50mm (which is $50mm more than the chump had b/f he went to the ER) b/c they do not want to go through a trial. Also, don’t worry about having to stand by these claims. While we’re at it, we’ll get a psycho evaluation from a local graduate of St. Thomas Medical School of Questionable Psychology and they can back up your mental debilitation.

THAT is what frivolous lawsuits refers to … not a dictionary definition.

friv·o·lous (frĭv’ə-ləs) pronunciation
adj.

1. Unworthy of serious attention; trivial: a frivolous novel.
2. Inappropriately silly: a frivolous purchase.

If your case is thrown out, you don’t make any money. I know Republicans don’t trust the court system, but if a judge and jury rule that a case has merits, I’m comfortable agreeing with them. And if too many doctors and insurance companies are settling, well then maybe that says doctors and insurance companies should do more to clean up their own collective act.

My favorite tort reform statistic comes from a study that Massachussets did. They found that 1% of doctors were responsible for close to 70% of malpractice claims and that 10% of doctors were responsible for 99% of them. Why doctors put up with an insurance system that allows doctors repeatedly found liable to continue practicing which has the consequence of spreading out the risk equally even though there is not equal risk is beyond me.

There is a reason car insurance is expensive when you are 15 and 70 years old and not when you are 35. I’d be able to take the whining of doctors on this issue a lot more seriously if they’d be willing to take on insurance companies the same way the trial lawyers they hate are.