Replies to post #306780 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[brainlessone]

its unclear. vioxx always had a worse profile even for gastric bleeding I think and maybe kidney problems

[simple]

THINK MALPRACTICE INSURANCE DOESN'T COST YOU?
Pacetown ^ / 10.07.04 / Jeremy Chrysler

http://www.spacetownusa.com/2004/10/think-malpractice-insurance-doesnt.html

Medical liability represents one of the most solvable of our healthcare problems, and we have to fix it.

First of all, YOU and I pay for these large payouts in court. If a jury awards a woman $20 million in pain and suffering, the doctor's insurance company may write the $20 million check, but it is you and I who ultimately pay for it.

The insurance company has to raise premiums to offset their risk and to protect their profit margins...they pass these increased costs on to the doctors. The doctors, in order to continue to run their businesses, raise their costs, which you pay directly or your insurer pays. If your insurer pays, they ultimately have to raise premiums. If your employer pays your premiums, they ultimately have to pay you less money in order to do so. YOU PAY FOR IT, AND YOU PAY A LOT.

Take for example, a doctor in Illinois, a state which has no pain and grief caps on malpractice. According to this position paper,

By locating in Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa or Missouri (ed. states which do) , an OB/GYN can save $75,000 to $100,000 per year on malpractice costs.

If that doctor would like to make $250,000 a year, he or she has to charge 30%-40% more in order to cover his or her costs. That's a hell of a lot more than the .5% that John Edwards implied. That cost must be passed to the consumer. You and I pay for it.

Sometimes, in order to maintain their current cost structure, doctors will simply abandon high risk patients. That way, they don't get sued. This is particularly prevalent in rural communities. Local doctors in Wesern Kansas, for example, can't afford the insurance rates required to perform high risk procedures, so high risk mothers / babies have to take incredibly expensive helicopter rides to Denver or Wichita or Omaha, where hospitals will help them. This is insanity, and it costs us all tremendously.

I told a story here, about my Shih Tzu puppy, who got what would have cot me $10,000 in human care for $734. Healthcare doesn't have to be as expensive as it is. Doctors shouldn't have to leave their home states to be able to afford to practice, and they damn sure shouldn't have to turn away pregnant mothers because of the risk of a lawsuit. It flies in the face of the ethics of medicine to do so, and it flies in the face of reason that we've allowed this madness to continue this far.