"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." - HL Mencken
====
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand." - Confucius
====
"The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease" - Sir William Osler
====
" The best test of a person's character is how he or she treats those with less power." - Bob Sutton
====
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them - well, I have others." - Groucho Marx
====
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
====
"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them" - Friedrich Nietzsche
====
"Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple." - Charles Mingus
====
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein
====
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
====
"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around." - Talking Heads, Life During Wartime
====
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Go and learn it." - Hillel, Talmud, Shabbath 31a
====
"You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing." - Thomas Sowell
====
"An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup." - HL Mencken
====
"If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." - Abraham Maslow
====
"A great teacher is one who realizes that he himself is also a student and whose goal is not to dictate the answers, but to stimulate his students creativity enough so that they go out and find the answers themselves." - Herbie Hancock
====
"There are no facts, only interpretations." - Nietzsche
====
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." - Anatole France
====
"In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
====
Workouts by month - Goal 200 from 11/1/09 through 10/31/10
http://ow.ly/1mYi7 - ABIM MOC program - two differing viewpoints - you can guess my voteMarch 16, 2010 5:06
RT @yejnes: My thoughts on the annual exam, etc., final letter ACP Internist, March 2010 http://bit.ly/9FNcXn wel-stated & importantMarch 15, 2010 12:47
A note to the professors, from the "real" world, on the use of ICDs in a fee for service community... http://ow.ly/1jaPy - great postMarch 13, 2010 2:19
RT @paulinechen: New "Doctor and Patient"; Learning to Keep Patients Safe in a Culture of Fear http://nyti.ms/bYA14V - blog post comingMarch 12, 2010 1:35
RT @tom_peters: @kevinmd Spoken like an MD. - true primary care is very complex - it is not simple care -March 11, 2010 12:43
RT @efalchuk: Seriously, what is Nancy Pelosi Talking About? http://bit.ly/9sHSc2 #healthreform #hcr #healthcare think Dazed and ConfusedMarch 10, 2010 7:53
Obama Says Health Overhaul Should Trump Politics - http://nyti.ms/bwKRyo - and he is correctMarch 8, 2010 7:28
@BertDecker multiples of 37 - trivial - any factor of 111 would factor into the others. The key here is that 37 * 3 = 111March 7, 2010 9:00
I read this article yesterday and had thought to blog around it. Bard Parker beat me to the punch, and left we nodding throughout his rant.
As I am out of town at a wedding, my blogging time is restricted. So, I will just send you to a better rant than I would have written – Money or Justice ??????
The picture painted in this article of trial lawyers turning down and occasionally abandoning cases because of potential modest financial awards affirms the long-held perception that they are there mainly for the money. Yes, the question is valid: Are they there to seek justice or to mine mega-dollar awards?
Ny system of justice, unfortunately, is perfect, particularly when money becomes the paramount motive. Caps on lawyers’ fees and non-economic damages, as are best exemplified by MICRA in California, have proven to be the best instruments in stabilizing smoldering malpractice crises in several states, particularly in the context of trial lawyers putting up every obstacle to retain a lucrative status quo.
The question here has always been whether we should continue to pursue the larger public goal of preserving our current health system, with access to medical services open to all patients, as opposed to the narrow, money-guided narrow interests of a few trial lawyers. The answer ought to be obvious.
There are other things we can do besides capping fees and non-economic awards to reform our tort system, including abolishing contingent fees altogether as Great Britain, France, Germany, and other civilized countries across the globe have done. Those fees are considered to be unethical, and no malpractice problems of the sort we have here exist in those countries.
Trial lawyers, for too long, have bamboozled the public into believing the contingency fee system is the key to open the doors to the court system, neglecting in the process to say it is a gold mine for them, creating potential conflicts of interest, ethical transgressions, and other abuses.
It is considered unethical for physicians to “self-refer” or to get a cut of reimbursement for tests their patients have. Are lawyers in this county above the ethical standards that we hold physicians to? Appearently, yes.
Lawyer’s contingent fees are like physicians getting a percentage of the income of the patients that they treat. Under such a wacky system those patients who earn a huge amount would likely get much better care than say. . a patient who earns only minimum wage. Obviously trial lawyers follow such a system where only cases that have rich defendants are pursued. It’s a disgrace. Who could defend such a tort system?
2 Responses to WSJ and malpractice caps
RGL
October 10th, 2004 at 11:57 am
The picture painted in this article of trial lawyers turning down and occasionally abandoning cases because of potential modest financial awards affirms the long-held perception that they are there mainly for the money. Yes, the question is valid: Are they there to seek justice or to mine mega-dollar awards?
Ny system of justice, unfortunately, is perfect, particularly when money becomes the paramount motive. Caps on lawyers’ fees and non-economic damages, as are best exemplified by MICRA in California, have proven to be the best instruments in stabilizing smoldering malpractice crises in several states, particularly in the context of trial lawyers putting up every obstacle to retain a lucrative status quo.
The question here has always been whether we should continue to pursue the larger public goal of preserving our current health system, with access to medical services open to all patients, as opposed to the narrow, money-guided narrow interests of a few trial lawyers. The answer ought to be obvious.
There are other things we can do besides capping fees and non-economic awards to reform our tort system, including abolishing contingent fees altogether as Great Britain, France, Germany, and other civilized countries across the globe have done. Those fees are considered to be unethical, and no malpractice problems of the sort we have here exist in those countries.
Trial lawyers, for too long, have bamboozled the public into believing the contingency fee system is the key to open the doors to the court system, neglecting in the process to say it is a gold mine for them, creating potential conflicts of interest, ethical transgressions, and other abuses.
The public should be told ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
Chris Rangel MD
October 11th, 2004 at 12:19 am
It is considered unethical for physicians to “self-refer” or to get a cut of reimbursement for tests their patients have. Are lawyers in this county above the ethical standards that we hold physicians to? Appearently, yes.
Lawyer’s contingent fees are like physicians getting a percentage of the income of the patients that they treat. Under such a wacky system those patients who earn a huge amount would likely get much better care than say. . a patient who earns only minimum wage. Obviously trial lawyers follow such a system where only cases that have rich defendants are pursued. It’s a disgrace. Who could defend such a tort system?