Insurance Reform

In my search for information on healthcare reform this week I have come across a memo from President Barack Obama for the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The memo can be seen in its entirety by following the following link: http://www.healthreform.gov/newsroom/memorandum/medicalliability.pdf

I find it interesting, though not surprising, that healthcare reformation and the current medical liability system go hand in hand.

In the memo it is stated that between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die each year from medical errors. These numbers may be true, but there are several words I would like to see added to the phrase "die each year from medical errors", and then see what the numbers are. Intentional is one, or preventable, avoidable, foreseeable, the list goes on. Yes, people die from medical mistakes. Yes, some of those mistakes are avoidable. Yes, doctor's are human and make mistakes, so why is it that when they do they are to not be allowed those errors? For every mistake that occurs with regard to patient care there is a potential lawsuit. From a paralegal student perspective, that is a good thing. It means lots of work for attorneys, which means they need to hire lots of paralegals. From a personal standpoint, and with a family member working within the medical industry, and in the direct line of fire of such lawsuits, this is not such a good thing.

In the memo there is a mention of the high cost of medical malpractice insurance and the need for doctors to practice defensive medicine. I know of instances where practicing defensive medicine has caused the demise, near demise, or deteriorated condition of a patient. All of the situations could or would have had a different outcome if the medical personnel could have been more concerned with the matter at hand than the worry of what that would mean in terms of a lawsuit. If the doctor works quickly and the patient dies, the doctor is at fault for moving too quickly. If the doctor takes the slower route to extinguish all possibilities and the patient dies, the doctor is at fault for not moving quickly enough. If a risky elective procedure is performed, such as gastric bypass, and there are complications, the doctor is at fault, even though it was purely the patient's choice to undergo the procedure and take the risk knowing the risks involved.

After reading this memo I began to wonder, is there really a need for government healthcare? I do believe there is a need for reform, but would it be better and more cost effective for the reformation to be within the insurance and judicial systems rather than the medical system? Yes, there are measures in place to reduce the filing of frivolous lawsuits, and this is a start. My definition of frivilous, anything that any person of reasonable intelligence and training could and should have been able to avoid. Example: A Florida man has his right leg amputated, his left leg had gangrene and was the one that should have been removed. Gangrene is a rotting of the flesh with a discoloration and odor associated with it. Even if the doctor could not read, he should have been able to see that the leg he was removing was not discolored. If the doctor could not read and was blind, he probably should not have been operating in the first place.

I believe there should be a bit of room for error in the medical profession. If you are a baseball player and throw a wild pitch that hits somebody in the chest and causes their heart to stop are you sued for wrongful death? Probably not. It may sound callous, but accidents happen and people are human, and therefore not infallible.

The following link is for a medical malpractice website and gives a pretty good definition of medical malpractice and how broad of an idea it is, which makes a medical malpractice lawsuit for about any reason possible.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/medical-malpractice-lawsuits.html

While typing I had a thought. What if instead of the doctors carrying the insurance there was a provision in our own medical insurance that covered us in the case of medical malpractice? I don't mean the gleaming errors that are obviously the fault of a medical individual, but the ones that occurred simply because there was not enough information, or because somebody made a simple, honest mistake.

Just as a side note, I found the disclaimer at the end of the memo rather interesting.