Lawyers/Tort Reform/et al - A Simple Solution!
This is probably going to garner for me a label as too simplistic, however I feel the idea has merit.The current tort reform discussion among the pajamahadeen has volumes of info; such as that at Captain Ed's place and a much more in-depth review of Bush's proposal and some of the ramifications over at Strange Women Lying in Ponds.
For my part, I am completely convinced that elimination of the attorneys' right to advertise.....a fairly new concept as the profession goes.....would cut down within months or a couple of years at most the volume of lawsuits.
Explain, you say....(if you even wish to hear an explanation)!
Each morning I arise (Mrs. Duke and I go to work early) and have coffee and newspaper (plus too damn many pills) while watching a local TV channel. The cute, limited dole of weather/traffic/news is interspersed by more commercials for attorneys than can be counted!
When in an accident "Don't sign any report for your insurance company before you talk with an attorney!"
"If you have had a loved one die in a nursing home, you might have a case against that facility"! (Don't most nursing home folks die there or in a hospital?)
Speaking of a hospital the old, "70,000 people died needlessly in hospitals and due negligence by hospitals and physicians last year". (People die daily....it is a natural thing, and if nothing grieveously wrong occurred someone needs to get over it. Death, in most cases is NOT an actionable offense!
The attorneys have educated the general public well (much as Democrats have those who now feel "owed" something because they are "disadvantaged") and in the process generate tens of thousands of lawsuits annually, many just for the purpose of coercing a small bundle of bucks from an insurance company/hospital/physician to avoid the high costs of defending a lawsuit.
Here in Florida, the attorneys have gone a step further. Claiming to want to make doctors accountable, they wrote, sponsored and sold to the public under false pretenses, a three strike law. If a doc has three episodes of malpractice (broad definition here!) he loses his license to practice.
This law flies in the face of doctors in high-exposure fields such as trauma and OB cases. It also induces once again a "settlement to avoid lawsuits" and then lose of license.
The actual end-result of this will be a LOT of good doctors practicing anyway... just in some other state! We, the public lose.
Without the constant harangue from attorney ads, I truly believe the public would eventually revert back to reasonable utilization of the legal system.
Of course, the problem with this is.....The attorneys themselves are the ones who would have to again decide it was unprofessional to advertise. FAT CHANCE!
Duke
posted by Duke of DeLand @ 1/19/2005 09:42:00 AM
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