<p>Exactly. The legal system, lobbied for by ambulance chasers like John Edwards, stacked the deck against the company. To appeal, they had to risk another $75 million in punative damages. Fine. Make the bastards pay. But, it wasn’t like they were putting rat poison in halloween candy. The kid was injured because the company’s protective cover was removed from the pool.</p>
<p>As President, would John Edwards be a champion of tort reform, particularly in the health care field? I don’t. Can’t vote for him. Sorry.</p>
<p>I think I understand your distaste for Edwards, though I disagree with it. My feeling is that there are plenty of times when we need these trial lawyers–excuse me, ambulance chasers. And, I guess I’d rather vote for an “ambulance chaser” than a corporate-puppet, empty-suit, cowardly, souless, hypocrite of a war monger. Oh–I almost forgot. He can’t run again! Thank the Lord!</p>
<p>I have no strong opinion about Edwards either way. But there have been studies that show that malpractice awards have very little impact on malpractice insurance rates. Insurance rates do not go down significantly when “tort reform” and caps are enacted. Illinois saw rates go down when it passed insurance reform–including a mandate that the largest insurer provide the basis on which it was setting rates. When other companies saw the experience data, they came in with rates about 25% lower and physicians began returning to the state.</p>
<p>Most cases where people are injured by medical malpractice do not result in any claim ever being filed. In many states, hospitals and physicians aren’t even required to disclose to you that your injury was due to malpractice. Only about 25% of injuries and deaths due to malpractice result in litigation.</p>
<p>One thing that caps on malpractice award accomplishes is to make carelessness and negligence less risky for hospitals and health care providers.</p>
<p>I’m hoping we get a better choice this time around. I don’t know about you, but the last election was a nightmare for me. I had decided that I couldn’t vote, but my 17 year old daughter told me that I had to…it was civic duty to hold my nose and punch a chad.</p>
<p>I hope so. So far I haven’t seen anyone I definitely want to vote for. But I’ve only seen one person that I would definitely vote against, so I guess that’s something.</p>
<p>^^^^That’s all that registers when I try to post. I think I’ll leave it to see if anyone has suggestions for what is going on. I’ve deleted cookies, tried breaking up my post. Maybe I will have to go incognito.</p>
The other thing that it accomplishes is better, more universally available medical care and saved lives. I recently read an article about the acute shortage of specialists in hospital emergency rooms and that people are dying because of the need to be transported long distances to other towns which may have the appropriate specialist willing to work in an ER. The extra time required to find a doctor results in death in some cases. A reason given for that is the increased risk of a malpractice lawsuit and resulting insurance costs just don’t make it worth it to be on call for an emergency room.</p>
<p>That’s true ff. Here in our town all the neurosurgeons have stopped doing any head trauma surgery–the malpractice risk is just too great as of course outcomes from these type cases are often less than ideal. Thus local patients must be flown to other cities which causes a significant delay in treatment and consequently even less probability of positive outcomes.</p>
<p>Most specialists are not paid by the ER or the institution (unless you are talking about large teaching hospitals). Generally, specialists take ER call for their particular specialty areas–surgery, neuro, cardiology, etc.</p>
<p>I worked for our State Board of Health for 10 years. The number of doctors who had their licenses pulled each year, with more than 2,000 complaints, averaged 3! With iatrogenic deaths in hospitals averaging 7-8% of all hospital deaths annually, the number of complaint investigations is pitifully small.</p>
<p>The reason docs can’t get malpractice insurance is because insurance companies have now made a decision to make money off their premiums rather than their investments. The percentage increase in malpractice insurance tied to payments in malpractice claims is roughly 2%.</p>
<p>So I’ve seen this up close and personal. The ONLY protection patients have against medical practitioners, insurance companies, and HMOs, are the trial attorneys, and god bless 'em. But the reality is that trial attorneys are only a small part of the adversarial system of justice. It is juries (you and I) that make the awards, and that force out of court settlements.</p>
<p>So you wanted Edwards only to do pro bono work. If he had lost his cases they would have been pro-bono work! Does a doctor or hospital not charge you if you die? No, they get paid either way. </p>
<p>Edwards was an excellent attny. Just the man I would want fighting big insurance companies if my child had her intestines sucked out out of her anus and would need care for the rest of her life!</p>
<p>I think Edwards is the best candidate b/c all the Rush/Fox people can come up with is he earned too much money helping people/has as much govt expereince as W did but less than Cheney/Rumsfeld. House is too big(Bush has 1800 acre ranch). Hair is too nice.</p>
<p>Sjmom,
Actually on second thought I was having a bad day on CC - getting caught up in my usual indignation over the Right’s smear tactics. I started googling “John Edwards estate” and found a myriad of entries. The first one I saw was around January 28th in a small Southern newspaper, then the Baltimore Sun had a story that was picked up by even more papers and just today, my paper in Minneapolis is running a story. All of this seems to indicate that Republicans see John Edwards as a serious threat. Lest you think I am some paranoid conspiracy theorist, I suggest you read this interview with a former Republican journalist who wrote the book, “The Republican Noise Machine.”</p>
<p>This article was written in 2004 and lays out the tactics used against John Kerry. Admittedly my ire was raised yesterday because I find the accusations against Edwards to be concerted and of the same essence of the attacks on Kerry.</p>
<p>Excerpt:
"As a young journalist in the 1990s, David Brock was a key cog the Republican noise machine. Writing for the American Spectator, a conservative magazine funded by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, Brock gained fame for his attack pieces on Anita Hill and President Bill Clinton. Then, in 2002, Brock came clean. In his memoir, Blinded by the Right, Brock admitted that his work was based on lies and distortion, and part of a coordinated smear campaign funded by wealthy right wing groups to discredit Clinton and confuse the public.</p>
<p>Since then, Brock has continued to expose the conservative media onslaught. In his newest book, The Republican Noise Machine, Brock documents how right-wing groups pressure the media and spread misinformation to the public. It’s easy to see how this is done. Fringe conspiracies and stories will be kept alive by outlets like Rush Limbaugh, the Washington Times, and the Drudge Report, until they finally break into the mainstream media. Well-funded think tanks like the Heritage Foundation overwhelm news reporters with distorted statistics and conservative spin. Mainstream cable news channels employ staunchly rightwing pundits – like Pat Buchanan and Sean Hannity – to twist facts and echo Republican talking points, all under the rubric of “balance.” Meanwhile, media groups like Brent Bozell’s Media Research Center have spent 30 years convincing the public that the media is, in fact, liberal. As Brock says, it’s all a sham: “I have seen, and I know firsthand, indeed from my own pen, how the organized Right has sabotaged not only journalism but also democracy and truth.”</p>
<p>That was in 2004 and after yesterdays news blog cycle I can see that it hasn’t stopped. Oh how silly of me to be idealistic and think that maybe Bush and his loyalists might have learned a lesson or two in November. Just this morning I watched Fox news coverage of the Pelosi private jet story and was astounded at what passes for news. It’s more like hyped up gossip/opinion Entertainment tonight style. This is how Republicans keep the voters confused, misled and uniformed. This is how we elect someone like Bush.</p>
<p>Liz, do you think for a minute that the same type of media machine doesn’t exist on the left? You can’t really be that naive can you? </p>
<p>One of the main differences is that with the left there doesn’t have to be an intermediary step trying to get a story into the mainstream media - the mainstream media is a more-than-willing accomplice. A recent example of this was all of the headlines echoing the Harry Reid talking point about Republicans squelching debate about Iraq - conveniently ignoring the fact that the Dems were squelching debate of any sense of Senate that was offered up by a Republican. It didn’t even take the DailKos/Huffington Post/etc. to gear up for this - it went directly from Reid’s lips to the headlines on the front page.</p>
<p>I disagree ff. In my opinion, the mainstream media is not particularly left or right. Rather, it’s like a shark–when it senses blood in the water, it will attack savagely, regardless of race, creed, color, or political orientation. I’ve seen plenty of liberals and/or Democrats crucified on CNN and through other “mainstream” media outlets, not the least of whom was Bill Clinton with his disgusting Lewinsky predicament. On the other hand, the right-oriented media (Fox, some newspapers, and virtually all of talk radio) tees off on liberals only, on a daily basis.</p>
<p>Hindoo, well then how do you explain the slanted coverage that I alluded to? If they wanted to go after the scent of blood they could just as well have chosen Reid’s blood. You are just so used to their method of covering the news that it seems like the norm to you.</p>
<p>My gosh I hope the Dems don’t shoot themselves in the foot & choose Hillary. She ain’t goin’ to win. Too divisive. You either hate her or love her. Way too risky for a national race. They need more universally charming, uniting folks. I’d go with an Edwards/Obama ticket, too.</p>