Originally Posted by
TopekaRoy
The problem is that the doctors don't pay if they lose. Their malpractice insurance company does. Many of these outrageously high settlements are reduced on appeal, but it still costs a fortune, and that cost is passed on to us in our insurance premiums. People know that it costs a lot of money to defend a malpractice suit and they file nuisance suits that have no merit, because they stand a good chance of getting a nice out of court settlement. One of the biggest costs of healthcare is in the malpractice insurance premiums that doctors pass along to their patients. Then you have the additional costs of unnecessary tests that doctors have to perform "just in case," so they have a better defense if one of these nuisance suits is filed against them.
I was a juror on a malpractice suit were the admitting intern misdiagnosed the x-rays and thought the patient had pneumonia, and he ordered that diahhretics be administered. Less than 6 hours later the attending physician reported to work and made the correct diagnosis of cardiopulmonary adema. This is a common mistake because it is very difficult to tell the difference between fluid and blood in the lungs on an x-ray. The doctor ordered the correct treatment and the patient was recovering for 3 days, before his heart just gave out and he died.
The family sued the attending physician for $1,000,000 even though he did everything right! We found the doctor not liable but we still had to convince 5 of the 12 jurors in deliberations to change their vote because they felt sorry for the family and thought they should get "something." They didn't care whether the doctor was guilty or not. They knew the insurance company would be paying for it and "they could afford it." It didn't matter to them that the patient was very obese, didn't exercise and was a long-term heavy smoker.
I've seen first hand how the legal system is abused and how it affects the cost of healthcare and insurance.
I don't know how you would go about setting "fair" limits, but something needs to change there.