Originally Posted by teyates:
rocky, welcome back.
Sadly the healthcare debacle orchestrated by the Dems was a focus in the wrong direction. Many of us who know about healthcare have said for years that one of the primary issues in any healthcare reform has to be an element of tort reform, which this administration, who is in the pockets of the trial lawyers, has totally ignored. For instance take a gander at this little bit of info I got recently....you will see that some studies have shown that a physician practicing in Alabama at one time had a 99% chance of being sued. With just a little bit of manipulation of the law, they turned this around. however, again the trial lawyers plan on supporting legislation that will make it even easier to file a suit, further endangering your access to a physician. There has to be a balance, and it requires compromise on both sides.
Fear of Lawsuits Still a Top Concern,
Survey Says Fear of lawsuits, a recent survey found, is still a top concern for physicians. The poll of U.S. primary care physicians, published in the September 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, showed that more than three-quarters of those questioned said malpractice concerns cause them to practice more aggressively. Soon after the survey was made public the American Association for Justice (AAJ, formerly the American Trial Lawyers Association) issued a release calling the survey’s findings unreliable and stating that “malpractice cases are extremely rare.” Despite the plaintiff lawyer association’s claims that malpractice cases rarely occur, a study entitled “Malpractice Risk According to Physician Specialty” that was published in the August edition of the New England Journal of Medicine and that also came under fire from the AAJ, found otherwise. The authors found that by age 65, three-quarters of physicians practicing in low-risk specialties and 99 percent of physicians practicing high-risk specialties had faced a malpractice claim. The study’s authors concluded that “The cumulative risk of facing a malpractice claim is high in all specialties” – hardly a sporadic occurrence, as the AAJ assumes. The national plaintiff lawyer group is on record saying “doctors’ perceptions of medical malpractice claims are not in line with actual risk” but Medical Association President Jeff Terry, MD, believes Alabama physicians’ fear of lawsuits is justified. “Physicians who have faced a lawsuit would certainly dispute that such cases are ‘extremely rare,’” Dr. Terry said. Alabama courts have in the past had a well-known re****tion for frivolous lawsuits and high jury verdicts, both of which helped cause the professional liability and litigation crisis of the 1970s and 1980s that drove insurers from the state. These were the early days of “tort hell” – a phrase coined in a Forbes magazine article to describe Alabama’s lottery-like legal system that was rife with large jury awards. This crisis and the unfriendly business environment it fostered pushed the Medical Association and other allied groups to fight for tough tort reform changes in the Alabama Legislature for respite from the barrage of lawsuits. For physicians, that relief came in the form of the Medical Liability Act of 1987, a law that Medical Association General Counsel Les Hayes says is one of the strongest of its kind in the nation. “The Medical Liability Act allows Alabama physicians the freedom to practice medicine to the best of their ability and in the best interest of their patients without fear of being dragged into a frivolous medical liability suit every time a patient walks in the waiting room,” Hayes said. Nearly two-and-a-half decades have passed since the Medical Liability Act became law and in that time additional tort reform measures have also been enacted, some as recently as the 2011 Legislative Session. While it used to make the American Tort Reform Association’s (ATRA) annual “Judicial Hellholes” list, Alabama has been absent from the report for several years and recently was selected by Area Development as one of the top three states for doing business. Forrest Latta, an attorney with the Birmingham law firm of Burr & Forman, in the November 2008 edition of Business Alabama describes Alabama as “a state that found its way back from hell as a leader in tort reform.” He also says “few disagree that Alabama’s legal climate has improved the last 10 years.” Dr. Terry says that by all accounts, the pendulum has indeed swung the opposite direction since the days of tort hell. The question, he says, is whether it will stay in its current position. “Pendulums, by their nature, never stop swinging – they may pause for a time but their movement always continues,” Terry said. “If it goes back the other way we could be in trouble.” With five of the nine seats on the Alabama Supreme Court up for election next year, plaintiff lawyers are most certainly watching the candidates and their races closely. While they have traditionally contributed heavily to Democrats in judicial races, it is anticipated that given the new Republican majority in state government, plaintiff trial lawyers will recruit and support their own candidates to run in the Republican primary in March 2012. Dr. Terry is not surprised. “I’m sure they’d like to see the pendulum swing back the other direction and from their recent statements and news releases, it appears they are gearing up for the elections,” Dr. Terry said. Latta also says in the Business Alabama article that “Alabama’s legal system is inherently political,” since all judges in the state are elected to office. In the same vein, could the strides Alabama has made over the past 25 years because of medical liability and other tort reforms be reversed by a future court? Latta believes they could. “The benefits of tort reform can be wiped away in one election cycle,” Latta said in the article. Dr. Terry agrees. “Seems physicians’ continued fear of lawsuits has merit,” he said. “We’ll never be totally out of the woods on this issue.”
Teyates, I respect your opinions knowing your knowledge of the healthcare industry and will agree to some extent about the need for tort reform in medical malpractice but I think this is an excuse that is used far too frequently by republicans and doctors instead of addressing the real issue of the uninsured who are dying everyday because of neglect, either by the medical profession via insurance payments or self neglect because of lack of money.
How can someone who ignores their own health due to lack of health insurance sue a doctor if they never even see one until it is too late?
This is the problem I see with the system as it currently is and will continue to be.
I have heard all the FALSE horror stories about country's which have universal healthcare and long waiting lines but the FACT is that country's like Canada have far better health statistics among their citizens than do the US.
I know you are in administration Teyates but I am married to a "front liner" and she has relayed very sad story's to me of those in real need of care who waited until it was critical and then and only then do they show up in the ER when they could have been helped much earlier. Even those with health insurance are sometime denied care. The only true reform of the health care situation is to take the "industry" and the "insurance" out of the equation and to put those who need care at the top of the healthcare debate.
Politicians from BOTH parties have failed miserably on this. I do admire those in the healthcare field (I better! : ) and especially those who staff this clinic. I just wish more in need could be helped and I believe a complete overhaul in the form of universal healthcare is necessary to achieve this.