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Edited on Tue Nov-30-04 11:47 PM by Czolgosz
fact based than its agenda on the war or trickle-down tax policy. The truth is that truly large awards are extremely rare and do not contribute in any meaningful way to healthcare costs (not even one half of one percent). We are getting NOTHING for giving up our rights.
You say a million dollars should be enough. That's an awful slippery slope. Maybe we should be content with reproductive freedom during the first semester only: three months is enough. No. Maybe we should be content with the rollback of environmental regulations over the past 3 years: drinking water that's largely free of arsenic is good enough. No. Maybe we should have been content counting certain citizens as 3/5 of a person under the Constitution: 60% is enough. Hell no!
Does anyone with kids think a million dollars is a fair cap on damages when a drunk doctor cames into the e.r. and kills a child? How does the million dollar get divided? Does the mother get $500,000 and the father get $500,000? Wait. After attorney fees (say 40%) and expenses (say $300,000 for a medical malpractice case), I guess Mom gets $150,000 and Dad gets $150,000. What if Mom dies? Does Dad get $150,000 and the kid get $150,000? What if there are 5 kids? Does Dad and each kid get $50,000? Does it matter if the doctor was drunk? Does it matter if the doctor leaves the e.r. in the middle of the surgery to get some cash at the ATM? Does it matter if the doctor's negligence results in Mom's quadriplegia instead of her death? You're good with Mom and her family splitting up a million dollars when a drunk doctor leaves her a quadriplegic for her life expectancy of 40 years?
My point is a million dollars is too much in most case and its not enough in a very few cases but we don't have to have a one size fits all cap because that is what the jury is for: deciding these tough questions on a case by case basis.
Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Thomas Paine: "I consider trial by Jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
You are completely buying into one of the Republican lies (in fact, it's one of Karl Rove's favorite lies): the issue of caps is not a fight between doctors and lawyers (that's a fight the Republicans can win) -- it is really a fight between patients and insurance companies (which is a fight the Republicans cannot win so they have re-defined into a battle they can win). When you say that the lawyers are just going to have to give up their big fees you should say the patients are just going to have to give up their right of recovery. The lawyers can practice in some other area of the law besides medical malpractice but the negligently-injured patients have no recourse except medical malpractice (ask a working man if cutting lawyers out of the workers compensation practice -- as was done in most states during the '80s -- has benefitted anyone but the careless employers and their insurance companies). Giving away your rights because you have fallen for the right-wing lies that bias you against lawyers is just as stupid as refusing to join the union because you have been bombarded by the right-wing lies about organized labor.
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