Malpractice claims and awards may be a small percentage of the costs, but the premiums paid by doctors reflect those claims and awards - and since all OB/GYNs and ER doctors are in the same actuarial group for risk purposes, their premiums can go up by a staggering amount regardless of their records.
I think you're off base when you suggest that people who were legitimately hurt are going to get screwed under malpractice reform. Nobody has suggested capping those awards - all the attention has gone to punitive damages and "pain & suffering" damages, which imao are out of line unless the doctor can be proved to have done something demonstrably stupid like leaving instruments behind. A lot of malpractice awards come because the doctor guessed wrong about what was affecting the patient, as if people were all the same make & model and reacted the same way to everything. Medicine is not like auto repair - not all diseases and conditions react the same to the same therapy from one patient to the next, and holding doctors to a zero-defects standard is unrealistic.
I'd like to see that link to the story about California insurance, because I find it very hard to believe. Insurance companies are regulated damn near as strictly as banks, and for the same reasons - they're handling other peoples' money, and government tends to keep a close eye on that sort of thing.
No, the whole system isn't broken - but it sure could use some fixing.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2005-01-12 02:32 am (UTC)I think you're off base when you suggest that people who were legitimately hurt are going to get screwed under malpractice reform. Nobody has suggested capping those awards - all the attention has gone to punitive damages and "pain & suffering" damages, which imao are out of line unless the doctor can be proved to have done something demonstrably stupid like leaving instruments behind. A lot of malpractice awards come because the doctor guessed wrong about what was affecting the patient, as if people were all the same make & model and reacted the same way to everything. Medicine is not like auto repair - not all diseases and conditions react the same to the same therapy from one patient to the next, and holding doctors to a zero-defects standard is unrealistic.
I'd like to see that link to the story about California insurance, because I find it very hard to believe. Insurance companies are regulated damn near as strictly as banks, and for the same reasons - they're handling other peoples' money, and government tends to keep a close eye on that sort of thing.
No, the whole system isn't broken - but it sure could use some fixing.