The American Medical Association is using pop-ups

for their campaign to cap medical malpractice claims.
I opened a news link and a pop-up leading me to the following appeared, asking people to send the following e-mail to their congress representative:

http://www.patientsactionnetwork.com/fastaction.asp?firsttime=yes&subject=100&adno=2&vndrno=2

Dear Member of Congress

I am deeply concerned about the status of the United States healthcare system. Costs are escalating rapidly. At the same time, it’s getting more and more difficult for patients like me to get an appointment with a doctor near home.

I support President Bush’s approach to solving this problem—medical liability reform. The fact is, thousands of frivolous medical lawsuits are filed each year by individuals hoping to “hit the lottery” with a big court award. Even though fewer than 10% ever make trial, the costs of defending against these suits are high—and are ultimately passed down to patients. What’s worse, when physicians can no longer afford the rising cost of liability insurance, they simply retire, leave the area, or limit the treatment they offer—leaving patients in many areas without adequate access to medical care..

The great thing about liability reform is that there are no losers—except the trial lawyers. Patients with legitimate suits will be able to recover unlimited economic damages to cover future medical expenses, lost wages, etc. Non-economic damages, like “pain and suffering,” would be capped at $250,000..

This is a reasonable proposal that will have a positive impact on our healthcare system, and I encourage you, as my elected representative in Congress, to do everything in your power to get it passed. Thank you for your time.

_________

I had not seen this approach used before...

how capping the payouts for VALID claims will prevent people from filing INVALID claims?

After all, if your claim is INVALID surely even $250,000 would be a good deal?

It seems to me that the AMA should use this letter as a suppository...

On edit: I just wanted to add, that if the AMA were genuiniely worried about "frivolous" lawsuits, they would be promoting a plan that would prevent such lawsuits or recover the costs of such lawsuits from the lawyers and plaintiffs rather than capping the payouts for non-frivolous lawsuits.

Here is another letter they are pushing:

Dear Member of Congress

I am writing to encourage you to save our healthcare system by dealing with the medical liability crisis many states are facing.

Outrageous court awards in a small percentage of personal-injury lawsuits are having a dramatic impact. Some lawyers, eager to line their own pockets, are actively seeking out individuals to file junk suits, dangling “million-dollar payoffs” as the reward. Unfortunately, physicians in many areas cannot afford the insurance they need to protect themselves against these ridiculous assaults, and are being forced to retire early or limit their practice to “low risk” treatments and procedures. Many doctors have stopped delivering babies, providing emergency care, or offering newer treatments because of the “risk.”

Medical liability reform, like they have in California, would solve this problem. A simple plan, it would limit “pain and suffering” and other subjective court awards to $250,000, while still ensuring that patients can recover unlimited economic damages to cover real expenses, like present and future medical costs and lost wages, if they are truly harmed. That sounds reasonable tome, and it’s been successful for years in California.

If medical liability reform can keep physicians in practice helping patients—and I think it can—it is well worth the effort to get it passed. As your constituent, I urge you to vote in favor of this measure if you have the opportunity.
http://www.patientsactionnetwork.com/fastaction.asp?firsttime=yes&subject=100#

Notice the phrases I have bolded. They make it totally clear what the REAL objective of this campaign is: They do not want to pay for their mistakes or outright criminal behaviour.

to get serious about policing its own ranks. They know, and the insurance companies know, the most lawsuits come from a few doctors.

I'm from a medical family, father a surgeon and mother a nurse, and they know which doctors are bad doctors. But it's really hard to get them disciplined, licenses suspended or removed, etc. The medical system does too much protecting and covering up.

If the medical community would first clean up itw own ranks, then maybe they'd have some credibility with me. They won't, so they don't.

Then, interesting thing in Florida recently, insurance companies admitted that lawsuits were down and awards were down, medical association admitted there were more licenses being granted in Florida than ever, ONCE THEY HAD TO TESTIFY UNDER OATH! They lied in their original testimony which was not under oath.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/columnists/sfl-phoward17jul17,0,1970974.column

"I don't know what's more remarkable. The fact that state legislators demanded that witnesses appearing before them actually tell the truth? Or that the witnesses actually told it?

Either way, Floridians were treated to a novel spectacle this week. After months of malarkey, major players in the medical-malpractice debate curbed the spin, stowed the slogans -- and let slip some admissions that did serious harm to Gov. Jeb Bush's case for a $250,000 limit on jury awards.

<snip> "