Health courts make sense
“Health courts, along with non-economic judgment caps and tighter regulation of the insurance industry, might constitute an effective approach to solve the problem of how best to reform medical-malpractice litigation, a panel of experts said.”
Of course, the lawyers are balking: “Carlton Carl, director of media relations at the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, told United Press International the whole idea of health courts could be unconstitutional. If 12 ordinary men and women can decide Enron is guilty of corruption with no expertise on corruption, then they can listen to evidence and make intelligent decisions about whether a doctor has committed malpractice, he said.”
Can you really equate corporate corruption with medicine? Does the ATLA really see things that simply?
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{ 7 comments }
“This is yet another attempt by the healthcare industry to limit its liability exposure by proposing to take compensation judgments away from juries, and replacing the jury system with a statutory structure over which their political action committee money can have more control.”
Bingo.
“Can you really equate corporate corruption with medicine? Does the ATLA really see things that simply?”
I think you missed the point, or skewed it to make yours. While physicians want to believe everything they do is incredibly complex, it’s not necessarily so. While there are some cases that are undoubtedly highly technical, they are no more complex than a number of other types of cases.
Obviously, they are understanding something because they seem to find for the defendant pretty often. Ever notice how insurance companies aren’t screaming for health courts? Wonder why that is?
Curious JD, leave KEVIN MD alone. You are always hanging out here. This isn’t a weblog to justify your gut-less profession. Get out of here and write on your own worthless blog.
Alois, no need for personal attacks. There is certainly room on this blog for discussion of divergent viewpoints.
Kevin
My Bad Kevin,
He is ALWAYS posting though. and hatin’ on the Doc’s.
-A
I think it is cool that the big man, Kevin, from Kevin MD, posted back though!
From Curious, J.D.:
“Obviously, they are understanding something because they seem to find for the defendant pretty often.”
This is a argument for health care courts!
Med Mal cases have the worst track record, of all civil cases, in terms of plantiff success. Clearly someone, at least early in the process (the plantiff or the vast majority of trial lawyers or the judges) don’t understand what constitutes negligence. A stunning 85% of medical malpractice cases in Texas end without payment to the plantiff. It’s not like the rest of the unreformed states are much better; before its recent malpractice cap 72% of Illinois cases ended the same way.
You can’t possibly argue however that this is a good thing or that the system is working because frivolous cases, and apparently there are a lot of them, take huge chunks of time away from the physician and also cost the insurance companies money to defend.
Health courts would create judges who better understand the system and may invariably lead to even further specialized attorneys. At the least it would cut down on the time physicians would spend dealing with these frivolous cases.
In any case it’s moot to argue this, clearly the legislative momentum is behind the physician lobby. Despite the federal governments clamp on its on tort reform legislation more and more states are jumping on the cap bandwagon and I imagine healthcare courts are not far behind in at least a few states…in ten years we’ll be able to say if tort reform worked or not.
Your numbers reflect the number of cases tried to jury, not ALL cases. Cases are tried to jury typically because either the defendant doesn’t think the case is worth what the plaintiff does, or there is simply an honest disagreement on the standard of care.
How would a health court change that? And how would a special judge “familiar with the process” change that? How many more of those cases would they get right or wrong?
Are you arguing that the parties wouldn’t prepare as much for the trial before the health court judge? That they wouldn’t take the physicians depositions?
So what if it costs the insurer money to defend. What do you pay your insurance for if not that? Do they give you money back if they don’t defend you?
You don’t have to wait 10 years – the insurers have already told you that it won’t affect rates. And don’t bet on health courts anytime soon. In 3 economic downturns resulting in “crisis”, followed by 3 rounds of cap attempts, we’re still having crises, and health courts still haven’t been proposed.
The only way health courts are coming is if we get a national health court plan. Then we’ll end up with a workers’ comp style system.
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