Okay. The Teamsters Union is not really trying to become part of the tort reform movement. I just made that up. My last blog post, of course, was meant to be humorous. But it was also intended to raise a question: Why does the medical business think it’s so special that it should be treated differently than any other business in our country?
Medical liability insurance costs and the need to compensate negligently injured patients for the harms they suffer are adding to the cost of health care in our country. But that’s true for every business. The reason that’s true is because, in America, we require that a company engaged in making money be responsible if it negligently injures one of its customers or an innocent bystander. That’s true for the grocery retail business, the trucking business, the taxicab business, the airline business and the business that makes widgets. That’s also true for every professional business---from attorneys and CPA’s to manicurists and morticians.
In most, if not all, of these business segments the primary cost incurred in addressing that legal responsibility is the cost of liability insurance, just like it is in the medical business. And “tort reform” would have the same effect in every business. All tort reform does is reduce the cost of claims by imposing an artificial low maximum limit on compensation awards. Tort reform would work the same way and just as effectively in any other business as it would in the medical business in bringing down the cost of doing business.
So why not, by legislative fiat, give all businesses the huge economic advantage that tort reformologists want to secure for the medical business? Because in our hearts we know that it isn’t right. To do so just isn’t consistent with the values we espouse and hold dear in America.
For example, a truck driver runs over and kills a college coed in the crosswalk because the driver is texting and doesn’t see her. We are not going to agree to denigrate the value of her life and the loss to her proud parents of their only daughter by placing an artificial value of $250,000 on her life and the loss to her family in order to save the trucking company a few bucks on its bottom line. Metro subway trains collide because of Metro’s cavalier attitude toward safety. Nine valuable members of our society are killed; scores injured. We are not going to agree to denigrate those human beings by putting an arbitrary price tag of $250,000 on each of their tragic and painfully lost lives and the holes that have been created in the family fabric of those they left behind in order to save Metro a few bucks on its cost of doing business.
Why then would we do it for a hospital? Why is a hospital any different than a department store? Both solicit your business, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars convincing you to come to it—the hospital because it is touted as “the heart center”, the caring “cancer center”, or the whatever center you want center. Then, having convinced you to walk through its doors, the hospital wants to denigrate the value of your life by saying a $250,000 payment is all that is needed to balance out the value of your lost life when you leave feet-first instead of upright because of the rotten medical care you received. If that’s not acceptable for the department store, why is it for the hospital?
By the way, have you ever wondered what would happen to the “savings” we would theoretically achieve in our national health care costs if federal tort reform is enacted? Is it likely that we, as consumers, would actually receive any of the financial benefit from tort reform? Or is it possible that the savings achieved would just end up being used to increase the bottom line profits of the medical and insurance industries?
More on that in my next blog.
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Well, for one the law doesn't actually the differentiate between "gross negligence", "error of judgement", "accident" and "recklessness". So what you might perceive as careless action might be perceived by the medical community as a sincere and reasonable course of action given the circumstances and when considered in relation to the risks of alternative approaches...
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of like the use of force by police. What you might feel is excessive, might be considered fair and reasonable in light of the guidelines established by the department governing officer conduct, etc etc
Liver transplants and heart and brain surgeries are inherently more complex, difficult and risky than delivering a pizza...I think we'd have a lot less doctors in the world, if every time a doctor entered the operating room she risked everything she owned and worked. Consider an emergency surgery. You don't have time to do a battery of diagnostic tests, so you don't even have a clear picture of what kind of trauma you might find inside that patient. Would you even want to step into that room? Is the patient better off if the doctor is so risk adverse that he doesn't try some desperate measure in an emergency situation that might save a life, because of concern how any unfortunate consequences maybe perceived in hindsight? A doctor must sometimes choose between several courses of action, each with their own set of risks and challenges, often while having less than a total omniscient point-of-view on the circumstances. Does a truck driver face these sames kinds of challenges and responsibilities on the job everyday?