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It's about time the doctor's and the AMA get their heads out of the sand and realize they have been “played” by their malpractice carriers or years. If they continue to believe the rhetoric about trial lawyers and lawsuits driving up malpractice premiums then I have a great deal on some land in Florida for them.
The evidence is clear that the number of malpractice lawsuits being filed is going down, not up, which translates to less money being paid out by the malpractice carriers. Malpractice insurance companies do not make their money on the premiums they collect, but on the cash reserves they hold. These cash reserves are then invested, and anyone with half a brain knows what has occurred in the stock market over the last several years. When this investment income shrinks the malpractice carriers then have to raise the rates to cover their investment losses. Are the malpractice insurance carriers upfront and honest about this? Of course not, they trot out the same old playbook about trial attorneys and lawsuits when in reality malpractice premiums are currently at a 30 year low.
Lastly, when are people going to get smart and look behind the green curtain shielding the income and profit of the malpractice carriers, and huge bonuses being handed out to the executives. Medical malpractice premiums currently make up less than one-half of 1 percent of our country’s overall health care costs, not the HUGE distorted number advanced by the malpractice carriers.
If malpractice lawsuits are decreasing and the corresponding premiums are increasing for medical professionals, where is all the money going? You tell me!
Wow, great segment Anderson. Caps are just another way the insurance companies have lobbied and bought their way into the system. My father in law is a retired radioligist and my husband is a personal injury and malpractice attorney. One of the saddest, but most true statements made is that Doctors are by and large 'poor business men". Sadly enough they are being taken advantage of by the insurance companies at every turn and yet the lawyers are the scapegoats. By the time everyone "WAKES UP" and takes a good look at what the insurance industry has done to this country-GOD help us all if it not too late!
If a malpractice suit is filled it would be because real negligence has occured. No attorney would take your case if they feel that no compensation to be followed and no experts to be found.
I can say first hand that medical malpractice should not be capped i have lost a daughter two years ago to a medical mistake she was only 10 years old. My question is how can any one place a price on a life. I am suing the doctors involved and will donate to charities, however this is the only way to make the doctor pay for what he has done. Also I would like to take to congress some ideas on changing laws the best way to go about this is by winning my case.
The fact of the matter is that the states regulate the insurance companies, not the federal government. The insurance companies know this for any type of insurance. The entire insurance industry needs to be changed but it will not happen because of the lobby and the money they give to our government. Malpractice is just another issue that won't be changed with only selective reforms.
200,000 Americans die in hospitals every year. Whom do we blame?
Great segment. I have been in the medical profession for over 30 years, and I agree with the attorneys (odd to say that).
Insurance companies settle frivolous lawsuits before they go to court to simply take the cheapest way out. That's why malpractice insurance is so high. Real malpractice does exist, and patients should be allowed to be compensated and incompetence should be penalized.
If the penalties for malpractice are capped, it would make the profit-over-patient-care medical businesses much more daring. These fringes of the medical community play the odds. The odds of the patient suing, the profits vs potential loss from a suit, the odds a patient will survive long enough to sue, the odds of the patient finding out he was mistreated.
Good doctors and hospitals don't worry so much about suits. They worry about giving patients good care and making enough money to pay the malpractice premiums the are required to have.
This is not the America i read about...the land of the free,the land of dreams.i don't think with what i see on the news everyday i can go on to believe in everything that the United states has to offer.
I am concerned about the politicians throwing race in the health care oppositions, what they don't think about is that this country knew two years before election day that the president is african american we didn't wake up the day after election day and realize he was african american. America voted, and as for anything or anyone in this world not everybody is going to agree with your thoughts and or ideas. Race isn't this country better than that.
If the public is being ripped off with health insurance and life insurance, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that doctors are being ripped off with malpractice insurance. maybe we need a public option in that, too. Maybe the government could use AIG to offer low-cost insurance of all kinds. Let's get something for our money after spending billions to bail it out.