I was listening to an NPR piece on the necessity or non-necessity of healthcare tort reform - specifically as it relates to "defensive medicine".

Some presumed Doc name of Elliott, called in. He said that during his long and wonderous career, he'd been sued twice. Both cases ended up being found to be without merit and no payouts ensued, whatsoever. BUT brayed Doc Elliott, since then, he'd taken to ordering every plausible test to man, in order to cover his ass. And said he, if he had to access the entire U.S. Treasury in order to protect himself, he'd do it.

Elliott begs some questions:

-Do you seriously believe that Elliot is a doctor?

-Who did Elliot think he was fooling?

-Are series issues well served, when frauds and liars insert themselves?

-OR....if you're wont to believe in the good doctor, doesn't the fact that our legal system held him harmless, suggest that "tort reform" is a red herring?

spreadsheet:

I was listening to an NPR piece on the necessity or non-necessity of healthcare tort reform - specifically as it relates to "defensive medicine".

Some presumed Doc name of Elliott, called in. He said that during his long and wonderous career, he'd been sued twice. Both cases ended up being found to be without merit and no payouts ensued, whatsoever. BUT brayed Doc Elliott, since then, he'd taken to ordering every plausible test to man, in order to cover his ass. And said he, if he had to access the entire U.S. Treasury in order to protect himself, he'd do it.

Elliott begs some questions:

-Do you seriously believe that Elliot is a doctor?

-Who did Elliot think he was fooling?

-Are series issues well served, when frauds and liars insert themselves?

-OR....if you're wont to believe in the good doctor, doesn't the fact that our legal system held him harmless, suggest that "tort reform" is a red herring?

Spreadsheet, my agreement with you has fallen to 99.98%. Elliot may or may not have been a fraud, but his points are valid. For example, you go to the doctor with a headache. Instead of giving you two aspirin and telling you to come back tomorrow if it still hurts, he orders a MRI just in case it might be a brain tumor. This cost is of course put on your bill or the one going to the insurance company. Juries awarding ridiculous damages is anothe reason reform is necessary.

he'd never...in his entire career, been adjudicated to owe a single dime for any alleged missteps. Yet, Dr. Elliott said that he was milking the system for an untold fortune, on the basis of a presumed "threat" that he had no actual evidence of. Something tells me...as does the empirical evidence, that you have no actual evidence of this threat either.

How is "Doctor" Elliot milking the system for an untold fortune by paying a higher premium on liability insurance?

Years ago out here in california we had tort reform.A limit of 250,000$ and loser can be made to pay a large % of winners legal bills .pushed by insurances companies with the claim"it will significantly lower healcare costs and insurance premiums" .They even had some charts to prove what they were claiming 'Guess what? premiums increased at the same rate and have not slowed down one bit .Arnold signed into law in his first term a second reform bill for workers comp. all it did was deny 30%(insurance company statistics) more claims.Workers comp premiums rose at a faster rate from that point on .tort reform as far as experience goes....IT'S ALL BULL SHIT!

JM & Spreadsheet, any tort reform must include reforming how the insurance companies set premium rates. If I knew how to do this, I wouldn't be sitting at this computer--I'd be sitting in a Waldorf-Astoria penthouse smoking an after dinner cigar and telling that babe on my lap to get up and get me another beer.

I thought the DOW set the premium rates.

There's no evidence linking loss experience - at least relative to average rates - with the increase or decline in premiums. On the other hand...these rates do track the Dow quite nicely. Those of you with fixed auto/home insurance premiums might not be quite so sensitive to this. But...my insurer sends us a "rebate" every Christmas season....and damn, we sure enjoyed the fatted hog, in the latter years of Clinton!

Julie, there are ways around competition when dividends and bonuses (wink-wink) are on the line.

Plaintiff winners were awarded $1 million or more in approximately a third of medical malpractice trials brought against nonsurgeon and surgeon defendants (table 1). The type of injury giving rise to the medical malpractice trial also had an impact on damage awards. Median award amounts for medical malpractice trials arising from death claims ($837,000) and permanent injuries ($412,000) were higher than the median awards for medical malprac- tice trials that stemmed from temporary injuries ($77,000) (table 2). The number of medical malpractice jury trials since 1992 has remained stable as the reported differences were not statistically significant. Since 1992 the percentage of plaintiff winners ranged from 22% to 30%. After remaining stable in 1992 and 1996, the median amount awarded in jury trials to plaintiff winners increased from $287,000 in 1996 to $431,000 in 2001. The percentage of plaintiff winners receiving awards of $1 million or more also rose from an estimated 25% in 1992 and 1996 to 32% in 2001. Note: Medical malpractice award data were available for plaintiff winners in 97.6% of jury trials in 1992, 97.3% of jury trials in 1996, and 98.9% of jury trials in 2001. Since the 1992 dataset does not contain award information for bench trials, the trend table only examines jury trial cases. Award amounts are rounded up to the nearest thousand. 1992 and 1996 award amounts are adjusted for inflation and presented in 2001 dollars. The inflation adjustment was calculated by utilizing the CPI inflation calculator on the U.S. Department of Labor's web page at . Data Sources: Civil Justice Survey of State Courts, 1992 (ICPSR 6587), Civil Justice Survey

Thanks, teigan.

Although....I don't imagine the purveyors of malpractice insurance, are quite so sanguine as you and Red Cloud are! For after all...despite your cuttedness and pastedness, none of your cite's wonderousness, has been reflected in the actual rates of any of those states that've indulged in the "tort reform" simplitude!

So...what does THAT tell us? It either tells us that the "promise" of tort reform is a godamn fraud. OR....it tells us that the insurers are robbing the doctors and nurses in these states, blind. And of course...the latter doesn't speak well of the alleged thieves...now does it?

In defense though of the insurers, the weight of the actual evidence - as opposed to the freakish agendized cites that give you and R-Cloud such validation - suggests that tort reform is but a diversionary fraud. They WOULD charge healthcare professionals less in the "tort reform" states, but their actuaries are unable to justify it.

Spreadsheet, I think your second paragraph sums it up pretty good."...insurers are robbing the doctors and nurses in these states blind."