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Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 12:39:10 -0500
To: improvetheworld &AElig umich.edu
From: Matthew R Rudary <mrudary &AElig eecs.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: improving the world
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One problem with this is that the doctors may have reason to side with 
the other doctor, regardless of merit. However, doctors are allowed 
input of this sort through expert testimony. It would be interesting to 
see some sort of independent panel, but it would have to be constituted 
carefully, to avoid bias.

With the political landscape as it is, it seems pretty likely that caps 
will go into place in this session. We can only hope that useful reforms 
go into place at the same time.

Matt

Lisa Hsu wrote:
> i once read an article positing that it might be a good idea to have
> these like....medical grand juries to decide whether a suit should go
> through.  like grab a bunch of doctors to sit on the medical grand
> jury, and they can decide whether the suit is frivolous.  a lot of
> suits currently happen just because the patient didn't come out as
> good as new, which is actually impossible to achieve 100% of the time
> no matter how good the doctor is.  so a jury of doctors can determine
> whether the doctor in question was negligent or not.  what do you guys
> think?  i thought it sounded pretty interesting.
> 
> 
> On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 11:44:29 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time), Karen
> Conneely <conneely &AElig umich.edu> wrote:
> 
>>Yeah, but it's a slippery slope - how do you differentiate the frivolous
>>lawsuits from the very justified ones?  Knowing that 1) there are companies
>>out there that hire actuaries to calculate the risk of death associated
>>with a defective product and to do cost-benefit analyses that figure in
>>the cost of lawsuits and settlements, and _then_ decide whether or not to
>>recall the product, and 2) in addition to all the caring doctors out there
>>who just want to do good, there are doctors who take a cavalier attitude
>>towards their patients (one of my friends nearly died because the surgeon
>>who did his appendectomy was drunk) - well, knowing these things makes me
>>want to set the caps on damages paid even higher rather than reducing
>>them.  If they can really find a way to weed out the frivolous ones that
>>won't hurt the people who actually have just cause to sue, fine.  But I'd
>>much rather see McDonalds get sued once in awhile for something stupid
>>than to see people being hurt and killed because the monetary incentive to
>>prevent it wasn't high enough.
>>
>>
>>
>>On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Dave morris wrote:
>>
>>
>>>I don't know, this list sounds a little too right wing for me. :-)
>>>
>>>Here's a challenge- what are the good things that will come out of the
>>>Republicans owning the government for four years? Anyone can come up with a
>>>litany of bad things, I challenge people to list the pros as well. I'll
>>>start:
>>>
>>>An actual chance of litigation reform for the medical and possibly other
>>>industries.
>>>
>>>Sure- it will largely benefit big businesses and the rich at first because
>>>those are the lawsuits they'll target, but I do agree that litigation has
>>>become way too rampant and core to our society in all strata in a way that's
>>>dragging us all down. Starting to pull away from that, implementing real
>>>consequences for frivolous laws suits etc., could be worth quite a bit.
>>>
>>>Dave
>>>


-- 
Matt Rudary
i'm not an egomaniac.  i'm a *realist*. --mlt