Sigh, Will We Ever Learn? (Medical Malpractice Crisis My Ass Part III)
In today's Slate magazine, even more evidence is presented which suggests that indeed the Medical Malpractice BS that we are hearing about from the GOP, and which I have been known to be a bit upset by (Medical Malpractice Crisis My Ass I, & II) is in fact BS.
Dr. David Studdert led a team of eight researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham Young University who examined 1,452 medical malpractice lawsuits. They found that more than 90 percent of the claims showed evidence of medical injury, which means they weren't frivolous. In 60 percent of these cases, the injury resulted from physician wrongdoing. In a quarter of the claims, the patient died.But the Dems have a plan. How about instead of blaming the injured patient for having the gall to have allowed their doctor to be negligent, let's take a look at where the problems lie in that negligence, then change things accordingly?
Anesthesiologists used to get hit with the most malpractice lawsuits and some of the highest insurance premiums. Then in the late 1980s, the American Society of Anesthesiologists launched a project to analyze every claim ever brought against its members and develop new ways to reduce medical error. By 2002, the specialty had one of the highest safety ratings in the profession, and its average insurance premium plummeted to its 1985 level, bucking nationwide trends.
posted by xine at 8:06 AM
3 Comments:
Here's a novel idea......How about employing a real method for reducing the staggering number of actual medical malpractice events that catastrophically disable people, ruin them financially and destroy underpinning of their lives....not to mention, a shortened, painful life of disability, hospitalizations, medicines, and indescribable expense. All this while the doc responsible goes unpunished and remains unaccountable and is out there plying his trade on unsuspecting others. Patients are uncompensated and the docs that cause these horrible circumstances go on their affluent merry way without so much as a thought about the suffering and carnage their malicious and careless actions have caused to unsuspecting patients. How about we demand a vehicle for flushing these bad actors out once and for all! Medicine is no longer safe for anyone...unless you belong to the elite INSIDER group. Don't believe it; just check out the stats for head counts due to negligent deaths and maiming. Read about Don Berwick,(www.ihi.org) for starters. We need a wake up call and now!!
11:39 AM
Yes, we have a mother of a Medical Malpractice Crisis in this country. Far too many bad docs is the root of this crisis----not the people they harm. Stop blaming the injured victims and the insurance companies. Take care of the root problem first, then go after the supporting factions (like the insurance companies--who like doctors are also greedy.)
11:51 AM
Anyonymous, I hope you didn't think that my calling the malpractice crisis BS was in any way saying that docs aren't ever negligent. The BS of which I write is the notion that frivolous medical malpractice claims are causing the jump in overall healthcare costs, and the way to keep health care spending under wraps is to take away patients' rights.
6:13 PM
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