Real tort reform http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&ncid=541&e=5&u=/ap/20041108/ap_on_he_me/sorry_doctors I came across this excellent article on Yahoo this morning. It made me think about an incident that occurred in my youth. At the ripe age of 19, I had an idiot towing a trailer run into me on my motorcycle. It crushed my leg and I sat on the pavement waiting for an ambulance for over 2 hours. (This occurred on Highway 70 in Plumas County – the middle of bum-frick Egypt!) Anyway, I was transported to St. Mary’s Hospital in Reno – the nearest trauma center. The surgery went fine to reconstruct my leg, however, the anesthesiologist messed up and didn’t stick the stomach tube all the way into my stomach. When awoken after surgery, the gag reflect took place filling my lungs with fluid. While the M/C accident was pretty bad, it was the surgery that nearly killed me. Afterwards the anesthesiologist came to my bedside and actually apologized for his error. He offered to not charge me for his services as well as absorb the cost of lung therapy (I had pretty good insurance, so this was not necessary). My point: This showed me that this was an honest guy, a good doctor, who made an honest mistake, and was willing to admit that he wasn’t god. (Something that a lot of doctors are unable to admit). I think if most doctors would simply fess up to their mistakes like a human being, we would have fewer torts. I used to work in the insurance business. I found that insurance companies brought on a lot of lawsuits. Instead of treating people like human being, they are deceitful and into bad faith. When I sued the person who hit me, I would have probably settled for a minimal amount, but their insurance company acted in bad faith. (They tried to blame me – wrong answer). Tort reform is more than just keeping malpractice lawsuits in check. The fact is that a majority of health costs increases are directly caused by bad investing on the part of health care providers (insurance companies) as well as administrative costs that have skyrocketed. Perhaps Bush ought to get his facts straight and demand that Health Care executives be paid more in line for what they are worth – and they are worth significantly less than doctors.
