Why we need healthcare reform

jcc64 wrote: This could easily be you or someone you love:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/17/m...s_n_464984.html

coasterqueen replied: This has happened to several people I know real well or love dearly.

Jeanne, I do believe we need healthcare reform, just as much as you. I just don't agree with you about the way we go about it. Obama's way - no way. Other ways, yes.

Right now I'm so peeved off about tort reform which we need, it's pathetic. Our IL Supreme Court has ruled tort reform in our state to be unconstitutional. We keep losing doctors left and right because lawsuits are so extremely outrageous, causing med mal insurance premiums to go up. It's disgusting. Sometimes I think lawyers are 100X worse than insurance companies. Trial lawyers that is.

PrairieMom replied: Yup. It sucks. I don't know what the answer is, but I definitely don't think that maintaining the status quo is it.

Let the debate begin!!!!

jcc64 replied: I think tort reform is essential, too, Karen. (see, we're agreeing again! )
My brother is a pediatrician, but refused to go into private practice b/c malpractice insurance was $300,000/yr.

Danalana replied: I don't even know what tort reform is, but that link made me very sad. We definitely need a change, but I don't pretend to know enough about it to even suggest one.

coasterqueen replied:
The simplest way to define it is having laws that limit the amount they can sue for in a medical malpractice lawsuit. The limits that people receive are astronomical. People want as much as they can get monetarily for medical malpractice caused on them, BUT trial lawyers are even more so more hungry for the monetary damages you would receive because they get a certain percentage of that. People talk about how big business is so greedy.....IMO, and sorry to anyone reading this who is or knows a trial lawyer....they are just as greedy if not more. The amount of money one gets for a lawsuit is way over what they REALLY need in their lifetime.

Because the lawsuit damages are so astronomically high insurance companies pass that on to the doctors by charging larger med mal premiums for med mal insurance, WHICH you really need to have these days. So docs move out of states that don't have tort reform. Not a good cycle all together.

jcc64 replied: To expand upon what Karen explained, Dana, because drs and insurance companies fear the almighty dreaded malpractice suit, they often practice "C-Y-A" medicine (cover your a$$), which isn't necessarily what's best for the patient and loads the system down with a lot of unnecessary, expensive procedures. And as Karen said, the bigger the lawsuit, the bigger the percentage for the malpractice attorney, which is why they always sue for such ridiculous amounts.

my2monkeyboys replied: This is extremely sad and angering... the whole health system in this country needs an overhaul. The bad thing is I think there will never be a perfect solution, and it's difficult to decide which aspects are the most important and to get everyone to agree on that.
I think the lawsuits are by far one of the biggest problems... they are linked to just about every negative part of the insurance empire.

jcc64 replied:

If we get nothing but elimination of the pre-existing condition denials, it'll be a good start. I fear that even that is now in jeopardy thanks to the incompetence of Congressional Dumbocrats.

Danalana replied: Thanks for the explanation, Karen and Jeanne!
Jeanne, this is off-topic, but I was wondering who that is in the picture under your username.

jcc64 replied: That is actually my now 17 yo ds, Alec, who will be leaving for college in Aug.!
I keep it there to remind myself and others how FAST time goes, and to enjoy all the little moments along the way with your kids b/c they'll be gone before you know it...

boyohboyohboy replied: I have never been able to understand tort reform either..

See as someone who has had dr's abuse their power and cause damage and health concerns to my own child, I dont want someone to tell me I cant sue my dr and get as much money as I can for both my childs medical needs, and also because maybe suing the dr for an astronomical amount would put him out of business and stop him from hurting others.

I guess being in the medical field, and seeing how the majority of the dr's I am around, misuse their "power" or get lazy about medical procedures, or worse just get in a mood and dont do what they should do..shouldnt be allowed to get off scott free when they make an error that causes someone else's life to be changed forever.

It seems to me you would want the option to sue them and stop them from hurting others..

so if tort reform stops me from stopping a dr, or getting help for a now medical crisis that he caused, I am not for it.

I know there are people out there that sue for stupid reasons, and tiny injuries that are fixable, and get crazy amounts of money, but there are bad people in every aspect of life, there are people without morals, and values..but those bad people shouldnt stop us from being allowed to sue dr's who really need sued..

isnt there a middle ground??

PrairieMom replied:

Middle ground.



What are you , reasonable or something?

jcc64 replied: Yeah, when there's money to be made, there's no middle ground.

coasterqueen replied:
A lawsuit in general can put a doctor out of business, because he's going to lose his license, possibly. I don't know the whole jist about if they get so many x's on their file before losing their license, but why not sue for them to have their license suspended or etc etc. There is a Dept. of Professional Regulation, or named similar, in every state that takes every consumer complaint, and they regulate doctors and their licenses. Just like they regulate other career licenses, too. My husband is an electrical engineer (PE) and he is regulated by the state because he is licensed. There ARE repercussions to your actions when you are licensed. Seems to me there could be more focus on laws regarding their licenses and such to "get them out of business" when it is warranted then to lawsuit them out of business. Just my opinion, though. I mean, lawsuits are warranted, don't get me wrong and those, including I, who want tort reform do want there to be available lawsuits, but do we have to do it so astronomically that it hurts everyone? There are other ways than greed, anger, revenge, etc that we can do to protect ourselves, etc. More strict license regulation is one, another is tort reform, another is educating consumers that they CAN call their state professional regulation office and complain up the wahzoo as well as write your legislator. We, as citizens, do a very good job of complaining until we can't complain no more, but we never try to do anything about it for real.

ETA: And really, yeah you get satisfaction by suing a doctor until he's out of business, but what satisfaction do you get personally for the harm/death of a child and what satisfaction do you get when all you did is make a trial lawyer that much richer? We, as citizens, love to demonize insurance companies, but we forget about doctors, lawyers, etc. I mean, seriously, the lawyer who is helping you with a lawsuit, might act genuinely saddened by what happens to you, but that % is small, most of them only care what you are going to do for them. Maybe we should start trying to demonize them as well.

boyohboyohboy replied:
you would think so...but not really!

my2monkeyboys replied: I think that there is room for lawsuits that aren't just ludicrous. Like the McDonald's coffee burning her.... yep, coffee is hot and if you spill it on you it will burn you. A doctor that ignored your symptoms and wrote them off as being tired, needing vitamins, needing a social life, only to find out you had brain cancer and then it was too late, sue the pants off him. (Yeah, that's a personal one.) Suing a doctor because he tried his best but it just didn't work... no go.
We have to realize that even though they go through YEARS of medical training and most really do want to help people, they are just human and they will make mistakes. I don't think we should allow frivolous lawsuits just because something didn't turn out the way we had hoped. Mistakes happen in all areas, be it medicine, auto mechanics, food service, etc., it's just that lawyers are much quicker to jump on the doctors because of the pay check.
Imagine how health care would change if the lawsuits were restricted. Malpractice ins would go down, doctors fees would go down because they wouldn't have to pay as much for the malpractice ins., insurance wouldn't require the doctor to test for everything under the sun in an effort to cover their butts, which in turn would make our health insurance rates go down.
It would be a win-win for everyone except the lawyers, and quite frankly I think some of them need to find a new line of work anyway.

coasterqueen replied:
Well said. We often forget doctors aren't God. They can only do the best they can. We often forget they are human just like the rest of us.

jcc64 replied:

Well, you had me until this point. Savings NEVER, EVER, get passed onto the consumer, only onto the shareholders.
Take the bank bailouts, which tbh I don't understand soup to nuts. But my understanding is that the big banks were given interest free loans by us, but then turned around and jacked up interest rates on credit cards anyway, knowing that some mildly consumer-friendly legislation was in the pipeline (I believe it is about to go in effect). They had a 9 month grace period, courtesy of the gov't, which they used to jack up interest rates as high as 30% on existing balances, increase late fees, and reinstate annual fees on consumers, many of whom are out of work.
Nice. Way to go. Evil, evil, evil.

coasterqueen replied:
Yeah, I'm not down with the whole jacking interest rate thing. That one irks me, but for us they just lost our long time loyalty to them. We just cut them all up, except one who didn't do any interest rate jacking, no extra fees, etc and kept that one as a gas card we pay off monthly. So in a way I should thank them because they made me become more debt free!

MommyToAshley replied:
I think the law went into affect on Monday, at least that is what I read in our local paper.