Anyone with any common sense knows that we have two basic problems in our society that are being talked about in today's presidental cycle
1) Tort reform - This is a revision of our laws to stop frivilous lawsuits and HUGE and Outrageous awards for damages. I.E. Women gets $ 13+ million from McDonald's because she spills coffee on herself and the word "hot" was not on the cup.
2) Malpractice lawsuits are killing the insurance industry due to the high awards.
Why do democrats not talk about tort reform, but they talk about Universals healthcare? Is it because the lawyers don't want the tort reform because they will lose their ambulance chaser status and the democrats will not get their share of the lawsuit money?
David R - Can you please provide some links to back your point? I would also like to see the numbers.
David R
Both Kerry and Edwards said during the presidential debate that lawsuits accounted for only 5% of the budget of the insurance companies. Neither Bush nor Cheney challenged the statistic which means it is true (they are also lawyers and know these kinds of things.)
The claim that rising court costs are the reasons for them raising their rates is a lie. The insurance companies have become extremely aggressive in recent years and they are paying far less out in damages. They just want to raise profits even more for their shareholders and themselves.
FYI, the lady in the McDonald's case ended up getting less than $ 500,00 of that money because the judge lowered the amount. She had more than $ 200,000 of out-of-pocket medical expenses to pay for skin grafts and a hysterectomy. Then she had to pay her attorneys. So basically she got nearly nothing. There were internal McDonalds memos saying they should make the coffee really hot so people wouldn't notice how bad it was, and they had already been sued and warned several times for the same thing by other injured people.
stiggo629
They probably don't talk about it because the facts do not support those who are in favor of it. It has been shown in study after study that malpractice payouts do not have a major effect on insurance premiums. The biggest effect on insurance premiums is the performance of the investments backing the policies. This was well illustrated by California, which imposed caps on payouts, but saw no reduction in premiums. If the medical industry cared enough about lowering payouts, perhaps they would police their doctors more.
The only ones who would benefit from tort reform would be the insurance companies. They would not have to pay out on their policies, while nothing in tort reform would control the amount they can charge for premiums. Doctors could also benefit by not needing to be concerned with their performance. The ones who would suffer are those who are injured due to the negligence of doctors.
Regardless, there are already sfficient protections in place in the legal system to keep actual frivolous cases from going forward. Perhaps you should learn a little about the McDonald's coffee case before you cite it. In that case, which involved a 79 year old woman (Who was not driving) who got third degree burns, McDonald's had knowingly been selling coffee at a temperature much higher than was necessary, and higher than many other restaurants. They had also been aware of injuries caused by this, but had always settled before the cases came to suit. They refused to settle before trial. Finally, the jury returned an award of $ 2.9 million, not $ 13 million, which was reduced by the judge prior to a settlement being reached. This was not simply a case of someone getting a little hurt because they spilled an average cup of coffee on themselves.
8 legs
Conservatives really hate lawyers, don't they?
Orignal From: Tort reform and healthcare - Are dems getting kickbacks from lawyers?
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