[Topic Split] Tort Reform

Re: New Prius Annoyances

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hdrygas\";p=\"44445)</div>

Saw an article in the local paper yesterday. Some lady is suing the company that makes Vioxx. Lawyer is expecting the judge to make it a class action suit. The gross part about this is that the lady has NO problems related to Vioxx. But in case she does later, she wants to sue them now. They are even asking for punative damages. You think the company said "Hey let's make something that will have serious side effects that won't show up for 2 years"? And we wonder why our drugs are cost prohibitive. I wonder if she instigated this, or the lawyer is an ambulance chaser hoping to get rich. I'm disgusted either way.

 

Here's an interesting tidbit regarding the phrase: "First we kill all the lawyers".

This is widely believed to mean that the first thing people need to do to make society better is to get rid of lawyers. But this is actually the exact opposite of what it meant originally.

The phrase comes from Shakespeare's Henry VI. It is said by the bad guys who want to destabilize society so they can take over. They wanted to cause chaos and to them, the best way to do that was to kill all the lawyers.

This is not a comment on lawyers, it's only a comment on the origin of the phrase.

 

forget the warning and just let the Darwin theory take effect. If your stupid enought to watch a screen that's telling you which way to turn and kill yourself well that's one less on the road. Only problem is most times they take out an innocent bystander. Still they're not worth having. Does no one take responsibility for their actions anymore? or do they just want to blame someone else?

 

well if we as a society would cease to live our lives recklessly then we might not have to worry about it...

cases in point.

Friday afternoon, some idiot decided to climb Mt. Saint Helens. he got to the top and started videotaping. the videotape was constantly shaking from one earthquake after another. the fool was standing on a mound that was growing at the rate of 20-30 feet a day... besides breaking the law, he is lucky to be alive...

then Sat morning on I-5 just south of Tacoma, two cars were racing on the freeway. witnesses (and there were a lot of em!!) said the two vehicles were driving over 100 mph in very heavy traffic. one of the racers lost control and cause an accident that involved 8 other vehicles. it was by the grace of God that no one was seriously hurt.

this is only 2 examples of what lawyers are needed for. and dont get me wrong, i have no use for lawyers. imho, they are the biggest reason why we have half the issues and problems that we deal with today. but there is a percentage of the population that simply doesnt know how to behave. unfortunately, we are forced to share this Earth with them.

 

Our government used to protect us from corporations. Now it protects corporations from us.

The only thing we've got left is lawyers. Albeit a very inefficient wasteful system, but the only one we've got.

And with Bush's first election in 2004*, we won't have that one either. (ie., tort reform)

Oh well, it's what the people want.

(*It annoys me when people refer to the re-election of GW Bush. You can only be re-elected if you were once elected. This does not apply to GW Bush.)

 

bruceha_2000
RE Vioxx: In order to sue for malpractice, you HAVE to have been hurt. She could theoretically sue for emotional harm, but with no physical harm, she has no case. Of course, anyone can sue and there are surely evil lawyers that will take your money.

On the other hand, Vioxx is not a good example of "frivolous lawsuits". Upwards of 27,000 people may have been harmed by Vioxx and the FDA and Merck new about this possibility a few years ago.

Had Merck issued an advisory at that time, they may have been able to limit their liability. But the fact that they not only did nothing, but may have tried to hide this possibility DOES make them liable.

Indeed, there are articles now being written suggesting that other COX II drugs like Celebrex might have the same problem. But the FDA and Saearle are using "legal speak" to say that Celebrex has no problems. But if studies show that it does cause heart problems in 3 or 4 years, they are now wide open for lawsuits as well.

When I started in healthcare, the FDA tended to watch out for the interests of consumers. The FDA protected us from the pharmaceutical industry. Now the FDA tends to protect the pharm industry from us.

"Tort reform" is widely hailed as a panacea for the cost of healthcare, but independent studies suggest that it will only save healthcare costs by about 1%. So the real reason for "tort reform" is to further protect corporations from people like you and me.

That is not to say that some tort reform may be needed. But I for one do not trust any version of tort reform that comes out of the Bush administration because you can be damn sure that any such law will have as it's priority the protection of the interests of insurance companies and the pharm industry. The interests of regular people will not be part of any such law, except in the platitudes that Bush gives us when he signs it.

 

Re: New Prius Annoyances

I can't disagree with anything that you stated, except to say that my experience with the FDA, as someone works in clinical trials for a biopharmaceutical company, has been less that 'protected'. They very closely supervise everything we do. As they should. Maybe our experience has been different because we are young and small company. We might be treated differently if we were "Big Pharma" with the deep pockets.

 

Chimera
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that the FDA is totally screwing up in their job. In fact, they are probably doing overall a pretty good job of protecting the public.

But when it comes to the public over industry on those things that can go either way, it will almost always go for industry. And that I feel is switch from the reason they were created.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prius04\";p=\"44488)</div>

Shut up! Do you want to give that bufoon a legal argument to serve a THIRD term?????

Peter+

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(prius04\";p=\"44488)</div>

Tort reform is necessary...if you don't believe that, read the book "King of Torts" and you will after that. The only person that makes out in a class action suit is the lawyer, not the victim. (Coincidentally, Edwards is a Tort lawyer, and Kerry is a lawyer also, that's why they're against tort reform.) Medical care and surgeries are rediculously high, not because the doctors feel they are worth that much (they are worth alot IMHO), but because they have to pay extremely hight mal-practice premiums. What happened to the old days, when we fell out of the neighbors tree and broke our arm, our parents took us to the doctor, got our arms set and then told us to stay out of trees. Now the first thing that's done, is we go out and hire a lawyer to sue the people that had the audacity to have a tree that was climbable in their yard!!!! Shame on them! This society has become to letigious (I think that's how it's spelled). I agree we need lawyers for those that were greviously wronged, but make them individual lawsuits...torts do nothing but make the lawyer rich and keeps our costs extremely high.

And by the way, Bush was elected, the Supreme Court just agreed with the Attorney General in Florida that the recounts were over. If people can't read a simple ballot, they shouldn't be voting anyway. I saw the infamous "buterfly" ballot. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Danny\";p=\"44982)</div>

Thanks Danny. As Bill O'Reilly says, no bloviating...that's his job. I have a tendency to get up on my soapbox too easily....

 

Hello VA,

I’d like to take issue with some of your points. First of all, I agree with the need for tort reform. And contrary to your statement that Kerry and Edwards are against tort reform, they are in fact in favor of it. This is a fact. They just are not in favor of Bush’s version of tort reform. In my opinion, as in theirs no doubt, Bush’s version has nothing to do with helping people and everything to do with helping insurance companies. It is pure and simple another “no corporation left behind billâ€.

And it is quite true that medical care and surgery is sky high, but to blame that on malpractice costs is “spinâ€. This is my opinion, and I work in health care. There are thousands of things that go into the cost of health care and there are reputable groups that feel that lawsuits amount to 1% of that increased cost.

You also pointed out that Edwards is a tort lawyer. You then point out some examples of foolish lawsuits. I certainly do hope that you are not implying that Edwards was involved in any foolish lawsuits. Indeed, the RNC has stayed away from every one of Edward’s cases that he won because they know full well that in every one of the cases that he won on behalf of “regular†people, those “regular†people had been truly screwed by giant corporations. So the RNC had to go elsewhere and obfuscate the tort law reform process.

And I think you are confusing tort law with class action law.

And as for Bush being elected, that is also your opinion. Just about every non-partisan legal scholar that has weighed in on the Supreme Court decision in the 2000 election has stated that the US Supreme court was very creative in CREATING new law to reach the conclusion that they did. Our constitution is very specific on Presidential elections. It leaves it to the states and if the states can’t do it, it leaves it to the House of Representatives. And as far as state law goes, the final arbiter of state law is the State Supreme Court.

Thus, the ruling of the Florida Supreme Court was the ruling that should have stood, regardless of its accuracy. The US Supreme Court had no right to find for the Attorney General over the Supreme Court of Florida. If the US Supremes had a problem with the outcome, the constitution gave them only ONE recourse and that was to declare the Florida vote invalid and to be determined by the House of Representatives.

And we now know that if every legal vote had been counted in every precinct in Florida, Gore would have won by about 30,000 votes. This was the conclusion of the Press group that studied the 2000 election. What that Press group also found was that if Gore had won his case and had the recount been restricted to only certain precincts, Bush still would have won in Florida. This is the version of the story that gets tons of play in the press. But we also know that had the Florida Supreme court been allowed to make their ruling, the one that was negated by the US Supreme Court, EVERY PRECINCT in Florida would have been recounted. Thus, Gore would be the President.

So I say it again because this is where the facts take me, Bush can’t be re-elected because he was never elected. The US Supreme Court used some creative law creation to stop the Florida recount from being done correctly. Instead, we got a couple of half a#% recounts but we never got a full recount.

And I’d also like to comment on your characterization of the butterfly ballot. The fact that you wouldn’t be confused by it is irrelevant. 6000 people were. Indeed, stupidity does not disqualify someone from voting. And IMHO, the current occupant of the White House proves it.

 

No, I wasn't insinuating that Edwards' cases were frivolous or even wrong. My heartburn with class action lawsuits or torts for that matter, end up making the lawyers a bunch of money and the claimants little or nothing because there are so many. What needs to be changed in the reasonableness that the lawyers can charge, (then you ask, what is reasonable), and the amount that can be sued for. Take for instance, on the news recently, a lady is starting a class action lawsuit against the makers of Vioxx because she just recently had started taking it, and what she's claiming is that she could get ill in the future. To me that is rediculous, how can you sue for something that hasn't happened? That would be like me suing you for hitting me while I'm driving, even though we haven't even seen each other on the road yet, but you may in the future and cause me pain and discomfort. Common sense has to come into play sooner or later...unfortunately, working in DC, I've seen that that doesn't seem to be the prevelant thing on the hill.

And like everything else that everyone says in here, including you, this is an opinion. You can agree with it or disagree with it, that's your choice.

 

Just to jump into the fray,

As a practicing physician, I would second the comment that malpractice coverage and defensive medicine is a small piece of the inflating health care costs. Of course this does also vary by medical specialty but overall has a much lower impact than many of the other non-medical costs of delivering care. Administrative costs, billings, compliance with numerous agency requirements, (OSHA, JCAHO, and HIPAA just to name a couple) medical insurance costs for staff (which tends to be higher for medical personel a high utilizer group and recently going up by 20% per year), Increasing numbers of forms and non patient, non income generating activities required to maintain personal and group medical functions all contribute to non care based costs of delivering care from my end. And then there is the cost of the medications themselve. Branded products rising at a rate well above inflation on a year to year basis. Even the generics from time to time have seen rapid bouts of inflation.

Furthermore, among other observations made regarding malpractice rates; there is a curious correlation between malpractice rates and the stock market performance irrespective of the change in numbers of suits/awards. While I don't totally disagree with tort reform, a more important piece of the frivolous malpractice suit problem in my opinion are the multidisciplinary prereview boards that exist in some states that will review the basic merits of a case before significant action is taken. While they tend not to be "final say" boards as to whether a particular suit goes forward, they do drastically reduce the number of frivolous cases that actually do.

Just my 2 cents (with over 12 years in practice)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(VARedDevil\";p=\"45050)</div>

You know what? The justice system will also find those claims to be ridiculous and this suit will be dismissed well before it gets to trial. In addition, the lawyers who filed this frivolous lawsuit will end up paying for the legal costs of the defendants. Contrary to what you may think or imply, lawyers and judges are not all morons (yes, there are some bad apples, just like there are in any other field).

 

10132003,

What prereview processes do is significantly decrease the cost of getting to that point more often than not.

 

Dr. Chu,

I know. I am a lawyer (27 years public defender). I do not know if that type of suit or the particular jurisdiction where it was filed has a pre-review process. What I described is the worst case scenario for the defendants in that suit.