<<That old statistical "10%" trick works nearly every time. For instance, the odds that you and I would one day be corresponding with each other are probably millions to one at birth. So anyone that says we are must be lying. Or wait, we are corresponding.>>
Point taken. I chose the 10% number , however, because it is one that I can easily defend given the medical research literature. The real number, I suspect, is more on the order of 3%. FWIW.
<<And maybe Edwards was skilled enough and had enough expert help to distinguish the minority of cases where the palsy was not only due to birth trauma, but also a result of the physician's failure to meet the standard of medicine required in his specialty.>>
And also where he might be able to extract enough money to end up at age fifty with a $50 million dollar bank account. I am told that analysis of his three largest awards revealed the case to be bogus in each one; you may regard this as apocryphal, since I can’t find a link.
“In building his career, Mr. Edwards underbid other lawyers to win promising clients, sifted through several dozen expert witnesses to find one who would attest to his claims, and opposed state legislation that would have helped all families with brain-damaged children and not just those few who win big malpractice awards.“
nytimes.com
Not a pretty picture, is it?
In point of fact, I agree with KB’s assertion that the problem is not trial lawyers, but the legal system that allows them to ply their trade in a manner that is injurious to the general welfare. It is not the hookworm’s “fault” that the patient is anemic; where adequate sanitation is absent, parasites flourish. We can despise the hookworm as vicious and horrid, but that is a useless exercise; better to close the sewers, and put shoes on our children. Trial lawyers are what they are; we need to control them by removing their access to prey.
Similarly, it is only because of our twisted system of employer tax breaks for medical costs that HMO’s, which make more money the less they deliver care, exist. I have to laugh (does no good to shout and throw things) every time I see some righteously indignant legislator rail against another incident of HMO malfeasance and promise to bring the perpetrators to justice. It’s a problem government created! They could fix it by removing themselves entirely from the system and letting it take care of itself! But, that’s not likely, is it?
I haven’t forgotten your previous question, by the way: <<What happened in Oklahoma to create the "malpractice mess?" ... Something happened and I don't believe that Oklahoma citizens became the overnight friends of plaintiffs and their attorneys.>>
Indeed, something did happen: 1) a particularly bad group of lawsuits associated with a non-physician practicing under a physician’s supervision, and 2) an explosion of malpractice litigation as trial attorneys from states with tort reform came to still lawyer-friendly Oklahoma.
online.wsj.com
The insurance company could have weathered the former; the latter is killing it.
<<The fact is that real people sometimes suffer horrible damages from the practice of negligent medicine, and although it is a "cost of doing business" that certainly doesn't mean that we should make the victims pay the cost of malpractice by denying them fair damages for losses which they never would have suffered if they had received competent treatment.... I'm all for a more stringent review proceeding to get rid of the small percentage of bad medical practitioners who cause much of the major negligence damage>>
The attempt has been made, in a certain small southwestern state <G>. The malpractice company decided to simply throw the “bad doctors” to the wolves--stop insuring them. An exhaustive study of cases, awards, and practice patterns was done. The findings were interesting: “Bad” doctors weren’t getting sued any more often than good doctors. The primary determination of whether a doctor would be sued after a bad outcome was whether the patient and family found him likable, with the next common reason being whether they “needed the money”. The primary determination of whether an attorney would take the case forward was how sympathetic the patient was, not whether the physician was responsible for his injury! Or, as one trial attorney stated, “A kid in a wheelchair is gold; I don’t care how he got there.”
<<I'm all for a comprehensive look into the (so far) private books of most insurance companies>>
Why should their private books be any more the public’s business than other companies’?
And now for something completely different: Bought a bunch of LEAP's on my favorite E&P today. Can't help but feel this is a sort of unpleasant, gut-check calm before the storm. Hope the winds blow up, instead of down.... |
