Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

DesertDrifter -- the promised 'more later' (further to http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=39702987 ):

the piece is packed with fabrications, the author (having no apparent expertise beyond) pulling same out of his butt -- (further) examples:

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"There is a very good reason that they call lawyers ambulance chasers. The majority of them specialize in what is known as medical malpractice suits."

there are a minimum of 760,000 practicing attorneys -- so 400,000 would be a fair low number of medical malpractice attorneys claimed [ http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/plp/pages/statistics.php ]

there were 11,037 medical malpractice payments (that on which 'contingency parasites' feed) made in 2008 [ http://www.citizen.org/documents/NPDB_Report_200907.pdf , pp 6, 16] -- so the author is effectively claiming that, apart from fee-splitting among multiple attorneys on a given case, 1 in about every 36 medical malpractice attorneys actually made any contingency fees last year (and as for the author's later claim that "Close to 19,000 medical malpractice payment reports were made in the US last year according to the Annual Report, National Practitioner Data Bank, US DHHS.", the highest number of payments made in any year since 1990, per the NPDB, was 16,571 in 2001 [id])

put the other way -- the total value of medical malpractice payments last year was $3.6 billion -- so that at a contingency fee rate of 40%, those 400,000 'ambulance chasers' would have collected an aggregate of $1.44 billion, or on average about $3,600 each of (gross, before expenses) contingency fee revenue last year

and compare "law offices (law firms and solo practitioners) generated ~$180 billion in revenues in 2003" [ http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/plp/pages/statistics.php#alfr ]

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re the author's "75 largest counties in the country" blather:

Careers in law (2003)
By Gary A. Munneke
http://books.google.com/books?id=Ag8u9xpMQnYC&dq=lawyer+demographics&source=gbs_navlinks_s
[preview: http://books.google.com/books?id=Ag8u9xpMQnYC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=lawyer+demographics&source=bl&ots=urv91eSpkO&sig=z-29SydvWFDFA-n33kqSu8lo9Xo&hl=en&ei=MmVlSu3iA4bYsgO-h8nlDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6 ]

List of the most populous counties in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_populous_counties_in_the_United_States

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"It is estimated that about 25% of all the doctors in the United States get sued on an annual basis."

"The number of payments per physician, at a record low in 2008 for the fifth straight year, has fallen from 22.5 per 1,000 physicians in 1992 to 13.5 per 1,000 physicians in 2008 [sic - 2006 (even lower for 2007 and 2008)]. [See Figure 2]" [ http://www.citizen.org/documents/NPDB_Report_200907.pdf , pp6, 17 (note that in 2005 the number of physicians went above 900,000, and has been increasing by roughly 15,000 per year)]

"Claims per physician declined during 1985-1988 and then increased and stabilized at around 9 per 100 physicians per year. ... According to a 1996 Socioeconomic Monitoring System core survey, 41.9 percent of physicians were subjected to at least one claim during their career as of 1996." [ http://books.google.com/books?id=pggmAPPaqWQC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=malpractice+claims+per+year&source=bl&ots=R5W4BmKLiC&sig=rVtLxKmhF-Rl7_2xr_mR68bapMg&hl=en&ei=U4pkSpv-KIzusQPYvdhm&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5 (2001) , p 33]

"12. Just 5.1 percent of doctors account for 54.2 percent of the malpractice payouts, according to data from the National Practitioner Data Bank. Of the 35,000 doctors who have had two or more malpractice payouts since 1990, only 7.6 percent of them have been disciplined. And only 13 percent of doctors with five medical malpractice payouts have been disciplined.

13. Between 44,000 and 98,000 people die in hospitals annually each year due to preventable medical errors, the Institute of Medicine found. A survey of doctors and other adults released in December in the New England Journal of Medicine found that more than a third of the doctors said they or their family members had experienced medical errors, most leading to serious health consequences. The cost to society in terms of disability and health care costs, lost income, lost household production and the personal costs of care are estimated to be between $17 billion and $29 billion. In contrast, the medical liability system costs $6.7 billion annually, about what is spent on dog food each year.

14. There is no growth in the number of new medical malpractice claims. According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the number of new medical malpractice claims declined by about four percent between 1995 and 2000. There were 90,212 claims filed in 1995; 84,741 in 1996; 85,613 in 1997; 86,211 in 1998; 89,311 in 1999; and 86,480 in 2000.

While medical costs have increased by 113 percent since 1987, the amount spent on medical malpractice insurance has increased by just 52 percent over that time.

Insurance companies are raising rates because of poor returns on their investments, not because of increased litigation or jury awards, according to J. Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America. Recent premiums were artificially low.

Malpractice insurance costs amount to only 3.2 percent of the average physician’s revenues.

Few medical errors ever result in legal claims. Only one malpractice claim is made for every 7.6 hospital injuries, according to a Harvard study. Further, plaintiffs drop 10 times more claims than they pursue, according to Physician Insurer Association of America data." [ http://www.medicalmalpractice.com/National-Medical-Malpractice-Facts.cfm ]

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in general:

The 0.6 Percent Bogeyman
Medical Malpractice Payments Fall to All-Time Low
as Health Care Costs Continue to Rise
July 1, 2009
http://www.citizen.org/documents/NPDB_Report_200907.pdf
[related: Report Shows Medical Malpractice COSTS Insignificant 0.6%!- Injuries Rising, Though, July 16, 2009, http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/16/754221/-Report-Shows-Medical-Malpractice-COSTS-Insignificant-0.6!Injuries-Rising,-Though , and
Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Payments Fall to Record Low: Report, July 20th, 2009, http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/medical-malpractice-lawsuit-payments-fall-4937/ ]

Medical malpractice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_malpractice [Sections 3 and 4]

Faulty Data and False Conclusions:
The Myth of Skyrocketing Medical Malpractice Verdicts
October 2004
http://www.commonwealinstitute.org/cw/files/CI-MedMalpracticeReport-Oct2004_0.pdf

National Medical Malpractice Statistics
http://www.medicalmalpractice.com/National-Medical-Malpractice-Facts.cfm

Claims, Errors, and Compensation Payments
in Medical Malpractice Litigation
May 11, 2006
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/michelle-mello/files/litigation.pdf

Medical malpractice (2001)
By Vasanthakumar N. Bhat
http://books.google.com/books?id=pggmAPPaqWQC&dq=malpractice+claims+per+year&source=gbs_navlinks_s
[preview: http://books.google.com/books?id=pggmAPPaqWQC&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=malpractice+claims+per+year&source=bl&ots=R5W4BmKLiC&sig=rVtLxKmhF-Rl7_2xr_mR68bapMg&hl=en&ei=U4pkSpv-KIzusQPYvdhm&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5 ]

The medical malpractice myth (2005)
By Tom Baker
http://books.google.com/books?id=oscj-8zwYkgC&dq=malpractice+claims+per+year&source=gbs_navlinks_s
[preview: http://books.google.com/books?id=oscj-8zwYkgC&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=malpractice+claims+per+year&source=bl&ots=Nb1aj_47BA&sig=E0sOArZzKdlsg0AF-b_As-lwLHw&hl=en&ei=M4xkSoPrEZSAswOT84zyAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7 ]

The Medical Malpractice Myth
July 11, 2006
http://www.slate.com/id/2145400/

Liability = Responsibility
July 11, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/opinion/12baker.html

Analysis of the Legal Profession and Law Firms
http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/plp/pages/statistics.php

(items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=39708146 [corrected first link http://www.insurance-reform.org/StableLosses04.pdf ] and following

(items linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=4313065 and following