The Oldest Story in Politics
2011-03-24 - by
As Claude Rains said in Rickâs Café in Casablanca, Iâm shocked, just shocked. Itâs like the world turned upside down â here on Talking About Politics. Iâm defending trial lawyers and Garyâs defending negligent doctors.
The issue of âmedical malpractice reform,â in a unique way, boils down to hard-edged questions about personal responsibility⦠and some really rotten politics.
Letâs dispose of a few smokescreens. The politicians favoring medical malpractice reform say it will lower health care costs. Sounds fine, but since Texas passed one of the toughest med-mal laws in the nation, Medicare costs in NC have risen less than in Texas.
The pro-med-mal politicians also say their reforms mean weâll have more doctors. Sounds fine, again. But since Texas passed med-mal reform the number of doctors in NC has risen faster than in Texas.
The med-mal legislators also claim itâs not true their bill will make all negligence in emergency rooms legal. It only makes negligence legal, they say, in extraordinary cases of trauma â like gunshot wounds â where doctors make split second decisions.
Thereâs not a word of truth in any of that. The ânewâ law changes the standard for medical care in every case in the ER. It makes ânegligenceâ legal and says only âgross negligenceâ is wrong.
What exactly does that mean? If you go to the ER with an aneurysm and an incompetent doctor misdiagnoses it out of negligence and sends you home and you die that night (which actually happened) the doctor has complete legal immunity under this bill. He has no responsibility at all as long as he didnât do it intentionally and wasnât drunk or on drugs (the standard for gross negligence).
Finally the politiciansâ bill puts a âcapâ on jury awards. In this big-spending age âcapsâ sound fine too. Until you learn the politicians are capping jury awards to patients who suffered disfigurement, mutilation, loss of limb and brain damage due to medical malpractice. According to the bills sponsors, Senators Bob Rucho and Tom Apodaca, these injuries are worth at maximum $250,000.
More to the point this bill raises a very old ethical question. What responsibility do you â or I â have to other people when they cross our paths? Specifically, what responsibility do we have when we harm someone else?
Our law, resting on English Common Law, sets a very straightforward standard: In dealing with our friends and neighbors or people we pass driving down the street we are required to practice âreasonable careâ not to harm them. If we do that then we have no liability as far as the law is concerned. But if we donât do that and injure someone because we were negligent (or were just plain mean) then the law says we owe the person we harmed restitution. And a jury decides how much that is. Not a politician.
If you want to track the roots of the ethical standard of âreasonable careâ they run all the way back to the Golden Rule and, beyond that, into the Old Testament.
How âreasonable careâ works in a medical malpractice lawsuit is also straightforward. If a doctor provides âreasonable careâ to his patient and the patient dies the doctor has no liability. None. Even if the doctor makes an honest error and the patient dies, as long as the doctor wasnât negligent he has no liability at all.
The doctor is only liable when he is negligent.
Thatâs the law State Senators Tom Apodaca and Bob Rucho want to change. And they want to change it to relieve doctors in emergency rooms of the burden of providing âreasonable careâ by saying they cannot be sued when they are negligent.
And, by the way, the âGolden Ruleâ will still apply to truck drivers, accountants, construction workers, and the rest of us. If on the way to the ER you run over a doctor in the parking lot due to negligent driving he can sue your chops off.
So why are Senators Rucho and Apodaca treating doctors differently than truck drivers?
It may be a coincidence but truck drivers didnât contribute $311,180 to Senator Apodaca and Ruchoâs last two campaigns.
What our legislators are calling medical malpractice reform is one of the oldest political stories in the book: Politicians changing the law to help one group of folks (doctors) at the expense of another group of folks (patients).
The Oldest Story in Politics
2011-03-24/
As Claude Rains said in Rickâs Café in Casablanca, Iâm shocked, just shocked. Itâs like the world turned upside down â here on Talking About Politics. Iâm defending trial lawyers and Garyâs defending negligent doctors.
The issue of âmedical malpractice reform,â in a unique way, boils down to hard-edged questions about personal responsibility⦠and some really rotten politics.
Letâs dispose of a few smokescreens. The politicians favoring medical malpractice reform say it will lower health care costs. Sounds fine, but since Texas passed one of the toughest med-mal laws in the nation, Medicare costs in NC have risen less than in Texas.
The pro-med-mal politicians also say their reforms mean weâll have more doctors. Sounds fine, again. But since Texas passed med-mal reform the number of doctors in NC has risen faster than in Texas.
The med-mal legislators also claim itâs not true their bill will make all negligence in emergency rooms legal. It only makes negligence legal, they say, in extraordinary cases of trauma â like gunshot wounds â where doctors make split second decisions.
Thereâs not a word of truth in any of that. The ânewâ law changes the standard for medical care in every case in the ER. It makes ânegligenceâ legal and says only âgross negligenceâ is wrong.
What exactly does that mean? If you go to the ER with an aneurysm and an incompetent doctor misdiagnoses it out of negligence and sends you home and you die that night (which actually happened) the doctor has complete legal immunity under this bill. He has no responsibility at all as long as he didnât do it intentionally and wasnât drunk or on drugs (the standard for gross negligence).
Finally the politiciansâ bill puts a âcapâ on jury awards. In this big-spending age âcapsâ sound fine too. Until you learn the politicians are capping jury awards to patients who suffered disfigurement, mutilation, loss of limb and brain damage due to medical malpractice. According to the bills sponsors, Senators Bob Rucho and Tom Apodaca, these injuries are worth at maximum $250,000.
More to the point this bill raises a very old ethical question. What responsibility do you â or I â have to other people when they cross our paths? Specifically, what responsibility do we have when we harm someone else?
Our law, resting on English Common Law, sets a very straightforward standard: In dealing with our friends and neighbors or people we pass driving down the street we are required to practice âreasonable careâ not to harm them. If we do that then we have no liability as far as the law is concerned. But if we donât do that and injure someone because we were negligent (or were just plain mean) then the law says we owe the person we harmed restitution. And a jury decides how much that is. Not a politician.
If you want to track the roots of the ethical standard of âreasonable careâ they run all the way back to the Golden Rule and, beyond that, into the Old Testament.
How âreasonable careâ works in a medical malpractice lawsuit is also straightforward. If a doctor provides âreasonable careâ to his patient and the patient dies the doctor has no liability. None. Even if the doctor makes an honest error and the patient dies, as long as the doctor wasnât negligent he has no liability at all.
The doctor is only liable when he is negligent.
Thatâs the law State Senators Tom Apodaca and Bob Rucho want to change. And they want to change it to relieve doctors in emergency rooms of the burden of providing âreasonable careâ by saying they cannot be sued when they are negligent.
And, by the way, the âGolden Ruleâ will still apply to truck drivers, accountants, construction workers, and the rest of us. If on the way to the ER you run over a doctor in the parking lot due to negligent driving he can sue your chops off.
So why are Senators Rucho and Apodaca treating doctors differently than truck drivers?
It may be a coincidence but truck drivers didnât contribute $311,180 to Senator Apodaca and Ruchoâs last two campaigns.
What our legislators are calling medical malpractice reform is one of the oldest political stories in the book: Politicians changing the law to help one group of folks (doctors) at the expense of another group of folks (patients).