I wonder how many kiddos will live because of this…

Good point. There was a study done in Israel a while ago when there was a doctor’s strike. You see, the number of deaths went down and the mortuary industry wanted to know why. So they commissioned the study. They found out that the previous time the death rate dropped so dramatically was during another doctor’s strike some 20 years previous. Less doctors practicing, less people they “treat.”

Hmmm. I’d be willing to bet with less Planned Unparenthood staff, we’ll see the birth rate go up.

I can’t think of any particular traumatic incident…so if its not a or b…

I’m not implying anything traumatic, I’m suggesting that we are all products of our environment, whether it is something that an authority figure did wrong or something that some boob got right.

Rather than anything based in a deficiency of nature, (your memoirs here have proven that your well mannered wit and intellect are “all that”) I believe you to be in a minority of liberals who have reached their conclusions on matters through a keen observation of their surroundings. I may disagree with some of your solutions to life’s endless challenges, but I appreciate the effort that you give them.

Conversely, the majority of liberals who I have discoursed with over a lifetime have led me to believe in what I posted earlier. Genuine souls all.

However, the majority of these conversations religiously ending with a heated accusation relating to some form of bigotry, or a Homer Simpson-type bubble thought above their liberal heads (a la a wind-up monkey with crash cymbals) got very tiring for me. (You try discussing cost-benefit analysis with a liberal.)

On a side note, I commiserate with you regarding your dog at age nine. I had a dog (little brother) from the time I was 3 until I was 17. As a latchkey kid, I never realized how important he was to me until he was gone, and I am sure that the little critter’s example of unconditional love, sacrifice and companionship had a large impact on who I am today.

Come to think of it, some of the most meaningful and philosophical lessons I have learned in life were learned from dogs, so don’t try to drop that anti-dog, pinko crap on me…

On January 11th, 2009 at 1:32 pm, chapoutier said:

I think we get into a sort of aristocracy situation if a panel of medical doctors has to approve every malpractice lawsuit against a medical doctor, though. Over time, I think a system like that would be abused more often than not, even if it began with good intentions from all concerned. Power corrupts, and that’s a lot of power to put in one relatively small group.

There are admittedly a ton of problems and issues with my “solution” (not the least of which are due process issues), I hesitated even mentioning it. But it is clear something needs to be done without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. After all, there are plenty of doctors that do commit malpractice, and people legitimately hurt from it.

Oh, I hope you won’t stop posting ideas for solutions! So much better than people screaming about which problem is bigger ad infinitum. The Founding Fathers didn’t put hundreds of people into Congress because initial proposals don’t need to be picked apart and refined, and I, for one, enjoy trying to wrap my brain around and pick apart intelligent proposals. If that’s done ad infinitum, maybe people will actually come up with something useable, unlike the whole “screaming at each other” thing.

I agree that something needs to be worked out that both allows for legitimate lawsuits while protecting doctors from being scapegoats and the monetary game in season.

I still think that situations such as the one Tamarah180 described are outrageous and inexcusable. And would still be outrageous and inexcusable if the husband’s signature had worked; wives needing husbands’ signatures for medical procedures and husbands not needing the wives’ signatures for the same thing reminds me of sharia law.

Incidentally, if waivers are so useless, why are they so ubiquitous? Sometimes I feel like I have to sign a waiver to sneeze.

They are almost useless once someone has made the decision to sue. They are not necessarily useless in discouraging people from suing in the first place. There are plenty of folks out there that think signing a waiver is a lot more meaningful than it really is.

Ah. So the next time someone hands me a waiver, I should picture Maxwell Smart saying “Would you believe…?”

So Son made appt and got snip-snip on himself. DIL didn’t have to even know.

THAT was BS….

I think we get into a sort of aristocracy situation if a panel of medical doctors has to approve every malpractice lawsuit against a medical doctor, though. Over time, I think a system like that would be abused more often than not, even if it began with good intentions from all concerned. Power corrupts, and that’s a lot of power to put in one relatively small group.

There are admittedly a ton of problems and issues with my “solution” (not the least of which are due process issues), I hesitated even mentioning it. But it is clear something needs to be done without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. After all, there are plenty of doctors that do commit malpractice, and people legitimately hurt from it.

Incidentally, if waivers are so useless, why are they so ubiquitous? Sometimes I feel like I have to sign a waiver to sneeze.

They are almost useless once someone has made the decision to sue. They are not necessarily useless in discouraging people from suing in the first place. There are plenty of folks out there that think signing a waiver is a lot more meaningful than it really is.

Some problems with the lawsuit excuse for medical providers:
1. Isn’t that what waivers are for?

I think that there is a fear that even if women who want this are made to undergo a screening process and sign paperwork stating they understand that the procedure is permanent, that there will be that one person who files a lawsuit because she didn’t know that she couldn’t get pregnant afterward.

I would think a correctly worded waiver and informative enough prep would cause such a lawsuit to not stand up in court…
Why so little fear that a man will be the one person to file the lawsuit, then?

Please note that waivers, in most areas of the law are pretty useless. I will say this, I absolutely think that as part and parcel to any health care reform, tort reform should be a part. Without any disrespect intended, the average citizen does not know enough to determine the difference between real negligence and the unfortunate but inherent risks of any medical procedure. People tend to think that because something went wrong, someone must be at fault, and if they can find just one doctor to say “well…I would have done it this way…”, you are screwed. I’ve always thought that med mal claims should have to go through an administrative procedure, a sort of medical review board, to determine in any case whether there is a basic threshold for finding negligence before allowing a case to go to trial.

While I don’t like to base law on the citizens not knowing what they’re doing, I think a negligence threshold decision by regular citizens with the heavy consultation of experts might be a good idea, sort of like a grand jury for a civil case. (If this isn’t already done-I don’t know a lot about malpractice suits, except that some of them are exceptionally ridiculous and that they are frequent enough to cause doctors to live in fear.) I think we get into a sort of aristocracy situation if a panel of medical doctors has to approve every malpractice lawsuit against a medical doctor, though. Over time, I think a system like that would be abused more often than not, even if it began with good intentions from all concerned. Power corrupts, and that’s a lot of power to put in one relatively small group.
When a jury is in place, it may be a good idea for the judge to advise the jury that there is a major difference between “something bad happened” and “somebody did something wrong,” and that the case rests on the doctor having done something wrong. It seems like sometimes all anybody wants to prove is the first part. Maybe explicit analogies between medical decisions and regular office decisions, though they seem patronizing at first, would not be out of line in these types of cases.
I am in favor of lack of gender discrimination in medical procedures, but I am not in favor of an adult duly informed as to the consequences winning a lawsuit later because the procedure did exactly what it was supposed to do.
Incidentally, if waivers are so useless, why are they so ubiquitous? Sometimes I feel like I have to sign a waiver to sneeze.

At the risk of sounding like a sexist pig: Because it’s not considered a big deal if we don’t want children. It’s more horrifying to a lot of people to encounter a woman who has no interest in having children as if there was something “wrong” with her.

The problem is that law and medical practice should not be based on stereotypes. (And such an unfounded one as that!) What if it were more difficult for a man to get painkillers than a woman, because people were “horrified” that he would be so “unmanly”? Or nobody would use cosmetic surgery to fix his scar or his nose, because he might not understand it’s permanent and change his mind later? I think there would be an uproar…

I perceive, through his/her writings, that “chap” is a liberal due to either nurture, environment or because of an influential incident earlier in life, and not because of physiological deficiency.

I grew up in a pretty conservative Catholic/Mennonite home in a very conservative small town.

Also, I can’t think of any particular traumatic incident. When I was 8 or 9 I did have one of my dogs slip from my grasp, run in the road, and get hit by a car before my very eyes once. But I can’t imagine that is what made me vote Obama.

So if its not a or b…

I read your post (novella?) #121 above, and was particularly struck by this:

Go to a hospital ER and get turned away? Not happening. The Hipocratic Oath still has meaning.

Not being turned away at the ER for treatment is all well and good. But an ER can not effectively treat your chronic illness. And you can go to the ER as often as you want; it still won’t help you afford your insulin and heart medication. Unnecessary trips by those without insurance to the ER are a huge driver of medical costs in general.

I honestly have no idea if overall it would just be cheaper to provide these folks with insurance, but at least that would have the added benefit of providing them with adequate long term care, as opposed to now where it is both expensive AND inefficient.

Some problems with the lawsuit excuse for medical providers:
1. Isn’t that what waivers are for?

Please note that waivers, in most areas of the law are pretty useless. I will say this, I absolutely think that as part and parcel to any health care reform, tort reform should be a part. Without any disrespect intended, the average citizen does not know enough to determine the difference between real negligence and the unfortunate but inherent risks of any medical procedure. People tend to think that because something went wrong, someone must be at fault, and if they can find just one doctor to say “well…I would have done it this way…”, you are screwed. I’ve always thought that med mal claims should have to go through an administrative procedure, a sort of medical review board, to determine in any case whether there is a basic threshold for finding negligence before allowing a case to go to trial.

Some problems with the lawsuit excuse for medical providers:
1. Isn’t that what waivers are for?

I think that there is a fear that even if women who want this are made to undergo a screening process and sign paperwork stating they understand that the procedure is permanent, that there will be that one person who files a lawsuit because she didn’t know that she couldn’t get pregnant afterward.

2. Why aren’t young men having the same difficulties finding someone to perform the operation?

At the risk of sounding like a sexist pig: Because it’s not considered a big deal if we don’t want children. It’s more horrifying to a lot of people to encounter a woman who has no interest in having children as if there was something “wrong” with her.