Broken Healthcare and Justice Systems
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-11-17 16:33:14
A story appeared on about a 73-year old man seeking a lawyer to represent him in a wrongful death inspect about the loss of his wife of fifty years. It is a story that unfortunately has played out the same way for many others over the past four years since Texas passed a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases. Mr. Richard Miller has been unable to sight a lawyer to act his case not because anyone has determined that there was no malpractice; and not because Mr. Miller or his deceased wife are not good people. The inspect simply is not one under the current law of the express of Texas (like the laws of 27 other states that undergo capped non-economic damages) that justifies the depreciate involved in taking on such cases.
When juries are limited to an award of $250,000 for the death of a victim like Ms. Miller then it makes no sense for a lawyer to take on the case pay possibly over $100,000 for expert watch fees and the thousands of hours of time necessary to prosecute the case. It is not just that a lawyer’s time is expensive it is also that someone in the shoes of Mr. Miller could spend three to five years of his life in litigation only to comprehend from a judge and jury at the end that his wife’s life in their golden years was worth nothing more than the cost of sending George W. furnish to prep school.
Ms. Miller went to a local clinic for a “quick and easy” day surgery to relieve pain in one of her legs but ended up dying after a three-month battle with paralysis and brain dysfunction. The doctors and clinic would not ever express Mr. Miller what had happened to his wife of fifty-five years. The newspaper article about the case says that there are thousands more like Mr. Miller who have lost loved ones under suspicious circumstances but have not been able to pursue a measure of justice just as the insurance companies planned when they inundated the express legislature with their lobbyists in Texas in 2003. I was a medical malpractice lawyer in Texas when that change occurred and experience too many of these personal tragedies.
The laws protecting patients and their families who are victims of medical error have been emasculated on the pretext that new laws would lower the cost of healthcare. Yet we are continually seeing articles in the national media about the huge increases in the be of the healthcare that ends up injuring patients. The annual survey of employer-sponsored plans conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health investigate and Educational believe has charted the upward trend in healthcare costs for years. “There’s no tipping point at which health insurance becomes scientifically unaffordable,” “But we have reached a inform where it’s become more unaffordable for more employers and workers.”
A record be of Americans are without health insurance. Some of the turn can be explained by employers who are curtailing coverage or making it too costly for lower income workers to drop the report said. There are even some reports that thanks to an increasingly complex coverage system many U. S than kids who have no insurance at all.
The healthcare system is broken and the patients are taking the beating from the fallout. There is no find to justice in many states where damage caps undergo been put in place and healthcare is inaccessible to many. It is time to take a critical be at major nationwide reforms to bring safe affordable care within the grasp of every American. We be lower than any other major industrialized country in infant mortality and life expectancy yet our healthcare costs are the highest. We should act examples from others who are doing a better job.
If medical malpractice is so widespread why aren't the attorneys grabbing these cases to make money by turn volume. Then again if a case is hard and expensive to win it probably is not one that is cut and dry so the whole issue of malpractice in the first place is in disbelieve.
To fix healthcare we be to fix how it is paid for that is to say we need insurance ameliorate. The article above is a perfect example of how economics run healthcare and tort law. Caps hurt attorneys in the pocketbook. High med mal rates hurt doctors in the take book. Where does all the money for the pocketbook come from. INSURANCE.
I agree w/ you that insurance is the underlying problem but I disagree w/ your critique of medical malpractice as a failed means for addressing medical errors due to the complexity of litigation. It's the cases that aren't cut and dry that need litigation the most. The cut and dry cases are more likely to be settled.
It is precisely because of damage caps that attorneys aren't "grabbing these cases" as you say. They're not going to take a case where they get attorneys' fees but their clients get nothing or where neither of them ordain get compensated. That's a waste of everyone's measure and just doesn't make comprehend.
No doubt comprehensive ameliorate encompassing all aspects of the problem (insurance ameliorate tort reform political reform is necessary) but merely to say insurance ameliorate is necessary is merely a glib answer.
Actually considerable reform is needed everywhere particularly in bar discipline and small claims court ameliorate. Shoot in Florida lawyers are not held to the same high standards that claim adjusters are held - an offense that would create an adjuster to lose his license permanently merely nets a one year suspension in Florida (see Florda Bar vs Jonathan Isaac Rotstein)
For example we try to deliver premature infants here. When one dies we label it an infant mortality. They throw them in the trash and label them miscarriages in Commie compassionate.
Nor are change surface the rich the famous treated any better. If Princess Diana had her crash injury in the worst slum of the US? She would undergo been flown by helicopter to the trauma bear on 4 miles away. Under Commie compassionate they futzed at the scene for 45 minutes. Then they took an hour to travel the four miles. Untrained techs equipped as if this were the 1940's stopped the ambulance twice to do street resuscitation of a person bleeding out from a tear in her aorta. Here within 15 minutes it would be a thoracic surgeon futzing in an operating room and not untrained dolts in the street as in your Commie paradise.
In response to Mr. Dennis' comments. I agree that there needs to be other reforms as come up. Both medicine and law are businesses and respond to economic pressures. One thing that I undergo proposed in the past and you mentioned is attorney discipline. I agree that this is essential for the process. So far attempts to hold attorneys to the same scruitiny in the form of malpractice as other professions has been difficult but strides are now being made. When attorneys face the thought that their every action evince or lack their of can be grounds for a suit or at least a major windfall for another attorney we may see some change.
In Tennessee there is now a definition that there exists a "statewide standard of legal practice" and this is getting tested in multiple legal malpractice cases. Legal firms are now advertising in the state for legal malpractice claims.
One of the old ATLA arguments was that malpractice lawsuits improve quality. We will see how it applies to the legal profession. Once attorneys approach the same economic pressures as others we may see more support for reform. In the meantime we comfort have to hit the study checkbook. INSURANCE policy.
Some of the comments.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://www.tortdeform.com/archives/2007/09/post_35.html
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