This is yet another issue where the Dem's have allowed the GOP to dominate the discussion. I am not in favor of attorneys filing unnecessary lawsuits but let's look a bit more closely at this issue before everyone starts complaining about out-of-control trial attorneys. I personally have had two doctors screw up on me and I know of a number of friends and family who have had problems which could potentially be called medical malpractice, including one person who went in for a routine operation and died (in his late 40's), but I do not know of any attorney who would take on those cases. Are there bad examples out there? Sure, no doubt. Do those make up a large majority of the overall cases? Doubtful.
The famous tried and true Republican method of locating an obscure abuse or even creating one and then making blanket statements about the entire industry is getting old. I did not buy into it when the GOP loved to talk about the poor, black, welfare mama who picked up her Social Security check in her Cadillac and I'm not buying into it now. A few tidbits from the article:
- Medical errors are estimated to be responsible for 45,000 to 98,000 deaths a year - more than those caused by breast cancer, AIDS or motor vehicle accidents, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Last year, the Institute for Legal Reform, an affiliate of the Chamber of Commerce, and the American Medical Association, the physicians' advocacy group, spent a total of $33.8 million on lobbying, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks federal lobbying. The trial lawyers' association spent $2.9 million on federal lobbying, PoliticalMoneyLine reported.
- He [ Todd A. Smith, Partner, Power, Rogers & Smith] says he decides to take fewer than 3 in 100 cases that are brought to his firm. "We say to people right off that a bad outcome does not mean you have a medical negligence case," he said.
