Insurance for delivering babies costs so much, the doctor can’t practice

[Monique]

Originally posted by Zero
No link whatsoever to doctors making mistakes, huh? Really? People just walk into a courthouse, make a claim, and someone hands them huge piles of money for no reason? LOL...ok, Russ, carry on.

Yes Zero, I believe it happens like that, a doctor doesn't do a perfect job and gets sued because of it. Being a doctor is not easy, how many years of training does it take? These people who sue are so ignorant of the fact that it is not like a plummer repairing a sink, we are talking about biology: the system is very complicated.

I agree, if a doctor leaves a medical tool in a patient's abdomen after surgery and writes off the complaints of discomfort as surgical pains and doesn't take action: get attention from some governing body.

If a doctor leaves a medical tool in a patient's abdomen after surgery and takes note of the complaints of discomfort and soon finds out the mistake and corrects it: do NOT scream from the top of the roofs 'medical impractice'.

Being a doctor is a high-risk job, you are seeing ill patients and they expect you to be God and fix them up. You seem to be one of those people who thinks that doctors should be allmighty Zero.

And Russ, those stats that Zero was referring to are in my later post, which shows that the number of medical impractice cases has declined by 4%. It doesn't say though how many got paid out over the years and were dealt with seriously. And those numbers were until 2000, 3 years old and a real decline cannot be measured, the numbers were going up and down every year.

 

[russ_watters]

I agree, Monique: it is unreasonable to demand perfection from any professional.

And I'll see if I can dig up some stats. The situation in PA is mostly since 2000 and is pretty dire.

You seem to be one of those people who thinks that doctors should be allmighty Zero.

I get what you mean and agree, but the missing comma in that sentence is most unfortunate.

 

[Kerrie]

Originally posted by Zero
Kerrie, you miss the point...caps don't affect insurance rates. California has done something, by reforming insurance companies, and leaving the lawyers alone.

i wasn't referring to a cap on interest rates zero...i was referring to the cap on the payout of malpractice suits...you seem to like to jump on any opportunity to bark at someone you feel is incorrect or wrong, which is not the point of our discussions here...

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Kerrie
i wasn't referring to a cap on interest rates zero...i was referring to the cap on the payout of malpractice suits...you seem to like to jump on any opportunity to bark at someone you feel is incorrect or wrong, which is not the point of our discussions here...

I thought I knew exactly what I was talking about: caps on payouts don't affect insurance rates. Were you not talking about payout caps as well? What did you think I was saying? Especially since I didn't bark a bit?

 

[Nereid]

Other solutions?

Fellow PF members have said a lot here about what happens in the US, and Adrian commented that he thinks the UK is going the same way.

How is medical malpractice dealt with in other countries? What sorts of malpractice insurance do doctors in the Netherlands (say) have to pay? Can anyone suggest a viable alternative, in the sense of a system which already works in a different country?

 

[GENIERE]

Adrenaline-

Wow! that was excellent!