Nuggets of Tort “Reform”
From Colorado, and particularly the Durango Herald, we get to see firsthand one of the truly significant problems with tort “reform.” Its supporters are not intelligent. The dead giveaway comes when the writer expresses his outrage that doctors are now forced to practice defensive medicine, when they should be practicing “offensive” medicine.
Well, you see, that “offensive” medicine is exactly what too many doctors have been practicing for too many years, which is why tort “reform,” which shields doctors and hospitals from accountability for their offenses to patients, is not a wise idea. It is “offensive” when a surgeon operates at the wrong site because he was too busy to perform a preoperative time out to verify the spot with the surgical team. It is “offensive” when that misstep seriously injures or kills the same patient. And it is especially “offensive” when tort “reform” imposes arbitrary limits on the amount of awards to such victims of medical malpractice at trial, often preventing realistic compensation, and always robbing the jury of its power and right to assess each case on its own merits, and act accordingly.
Meanwhile, hospitals continue to value profit over patient welfare, and act–or fail to act–accordingly. The Pop Tort has a heartbreaking round up of stories on the failure of New Orleans-area hospitals to outfit their facilities properly with generators in anticipation of flooding. Along came Katrina, and patients on life-support died slow, agonizing deaths when the power failed, and could not be replicated by other sources. Offensive? As one of the least intelligent of the tort “reformers” likes to say, “You betcha!!
Remember When Steering Wheels Were For Driving?
Hopefully you have all seen the steering wheel desk for sale at Amazon.com. The important thing is the “comments” section. Many are hysterically funny. And they should be, since they are in response to an idea that is ridiculous and frightening all at the same time.
Interestingly, a steering wheel desk has received the recent attention of the Appellate Division, Third Dept., after a driver who “may” have been using one crashed into and injured two passengers in another car. According to today’s New York Law Journal, such a desk served as the resting place for a laptop computer, the screen of which was flipped up and “turned on, indicating recent use,” according to Justice Anthony T. Kane.
As a result of this evidence, obtained in large part by the tow truck driver who responded to the scene of the accident, the Third Dept. has ordered that the cell phone records ( there were 3 in the car, along with the laptop, at the time of the accident) as well as the wireless air card from the laptop, be subject to disclosure in the lawsuits filed by the injured passengers, who contend that the driver of the vehicle that hit them may have been distracted by his electronic communications devices.
Conservative Hacks Continue to Beat Medical Malpractice Horse
Today’s Washington Times has a commentary post by a person who claims the title of “doctor,” Dr. Jason D. Fodeman. I say that because the writer addresses the high costs of so-called “defensive medicine,” in a manner so robotic and lacking in humanity that it is difficult to believe such a person has devoted his life to healing people.
Whether a doctor, or just another conservative ghost writer, you know he’s a hack by the phrases he uses. In one modest post, we are charmed to see “tort mafia,” “jackpot justice” and, my favorite by far, “pesky lawyers.” Do you suspect that this man of the healing arts might have a political agenda?
To sum up his point: doctors are forced to practice defensive medicine, distracting them from the more important things at hand, by amoral, parasitic trial lawyers who force them to cover themselves in anticipation of out-of-control medical malpractice suits.
Interestingly, the good doctor appears to have forgotten how useful we pesky trial lawyers can be to his colleagues and him. Here’s a little reminder. When the US health insurers you relied on for much of your salary began shortchanging you, your premier professional organization, the AMA, hand-in-hand with numerous state medical societies, retained us trial lawyers to go after those insurance companies. I guess money can be quite the motivating factor for you, huh Doc? And, darn it, I still can’t quite get the difference in spelling between Hippocratic and hypocritical!
Anyway, Doc, I’m a little surprised that an educated professional like yourself would leave out the “other reason” for skyrocketing defensive medicine costs: you doctors–you know, the ones who decide which extra tests are necessary, and how often to order them–enjoy lining your own pockets with the extra cash generated by these extra tests. Could that have something to do with those high costs?
But the clearest lapse in your post is the failure to mention, even once, the victims of medical errors, who are injured and sometimes killed by medical malpractice. There is a “cost” there too, Doc, but one that was not important enough for you to write about.