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It’s tough to find a doctor these days without also finding a medical malpractice attorney (or two or three or four) closely nipping at the doctor’s heels. Medical malpractice lawsuits have become quite the rage and as a result, each and every doctor across this country has now become fair game for the thousands upon thousands of medical malpractice lawyers. Rampant medical malpractice claims, being brought forward by ever opportunistic medical malpractice lawyers, have directly contributed to the spiraling out of control costs of health care in America. To put the size of the problem in its proper perspective, the rising cost of maintaining medical malpractice liability insurance is quite simply driving some doctors right out of the medical profession. That’s a crime. Texas’ current Attorney General John Cornyn, speaking out about frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits recently, noted that Texas doctors are about twice as likely to be sued as their colleagues across the country. Lucky them. In fact, Cornyn commented that more than half of all doctors in Texas had at least one claim filed against them in the last year. In statistics cited by Attorney General Cornyn, eight out of ten medical malpractice lawsuits result in no payment being made by the doctor because there is no fault on the doctor’s part. Yet doctors have to divert precious time and resources (not to mention money, of course) away from their practices and their patients to defend themselves against these predatory medical malpractice lawsuits. In a story covered by The Brownsville Herald, a local heart surgeon described the multiple effects of frivolously filed medical malpractice lawsuits on the medical profession as a chain reaction that a) increases the medical malpractice insurance premiums paid by the doctors, b) forces the doctors to practice medicine more defensively, c) drives up the costs of health care and d) restricts the availability of health care. How does any of this help the public receive better health care services? Quite frankly, it doesn’t. But don’t look for the medical malpractice lawyer contingent to lose any sleep over that trifling matter any time soon. They’re too busy scurrying around suing the pants off doctors and insurance companies to even notice. The costs of medical malpractice insurance premiums are now reaching stratospheric levels. Some physicians have experienced insurance premium increases that have double, tripled and even quadrupled in the last several years, if they can find insurers willing to offer the coverage. These doctors have no choice but to pay the piper and pass the medical malpractice insurance premiums on down the line. As these costs are passed on down, the health care insurers ratchet up their premium costs to employers and small business owners - and the beat goes on and on.
Legitimate medical malpractice lawsuits brought against doctors who have indeed made mistakes are not part of the real problem either. Doctors do make mistakes and that is precisely why they carry medical malpractice insurance in the first place. This medical malpractice insurance protects those patients who have suffered due to the neglect or mistakes of their physicians. No one will quibble that these patients deserve compensation. However, it should be duly noted that those medical malpractice lawyers who routinely rip off their clients to the tune of forty to fifty percent of any settlement and/or award made (not counting expenses - which are reimbursed as well) are not doing their misfortunate clients any great favor. Settlements and awards are meant to compensate the victims, not unjustly enrich the bank accounts of medical malpractice lawyers. After all, the victim has to live with the problem, sometimes for the rest of his or her life, while the medical malpractice lawyer can collect his or her windfall and quickly find another ambulance to chase. Which brings us to the primary problem confronting the medical profession at large - frivolous lawsuits. This problem, which is indiscriminate medical malpractice litigation levied for the express purposes of extorting a settlement from the doctor and his or her insurers, has reached epidemic proportions and shows no sign of letting up any time soon. Medical malpractice lawyers know the drill by heart. They get the ball rolling by hawking their questionable services in relentless, mind numbing fashion. Obtaining a sizable client list of patients who have allegedly been mistreated, misdiagnosed and misled by their doctors presents little challenge for the medical malpractice attorney in today’s super charged, litigation crazed society. Once the client has been recruited, the lawyer need only file a medical malpractice lawsuit and wait for the big bucks to come rolling in. Sure the medical malpractice lawyer knows that the odds are against him on any given case - that is precisely why the medical malpractice lawyer has scads of medical malpractice lawsuits in the hopper at any given time. Sooner or later, usually sooner, a big jackpot pay-off is just around the corner for the attorney. The lawyer cashes in - and the rest of us just keep on paying and paying and paying. It’s Time To Wake Up and Smell the Lawyers at work. A lawyer a day (or a couple thousand to be a bit more accurate) is going to keep more and more doctors away from their patients.
Hey, if you’ve got a goofy lawsuit you’d like to pass on to us, simply click Stupid Lawsuits and Other Funny Stuff and we’ll add yours to our ever growing list of stupid lawsuits. And while you’re at in, why not take a few moments and check out our growing collection of Funny Lawyer Quotes, Jokes and Cartoons? It’s Time to Wake Up and Smell the Lawyers Book: If you haven’t read our highly acclaimed book, you’re missing out on a load of information about America’s legal system – and a load of laughs as well. You can read excerpts taken from the book by clicking book chapter summaries here. You can sign up for our FREE newsletter by clicking subscribe in the box on the left of the page. Please tell your friends, relatives and business associates about our Lawyers Stink E-mail Newsletter. They can subscribe at our web site: http://www.power-of-attorneys.com (of course you can e-mail this newsletter to them!). If you would like to review past issues of our Lawyers Stink E-mail Newsletter, simply click view back issues of our newsletter. We always respect your privacy and will not share your e-mail address with anyone. If, at any time, you decide that you don’t want to receive this newsletter any more, simply click the unsubscribe link within the body of your newsletter. Thanks for reading this issue of the Lawyers Stink E-mail Newsletter and we’ll see you next month. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions about our newsletter.
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Patients suing doctors, doctors suing
insurance companies, insurance companies suing doctors; welcome to health
care in the 21st Century. Lawyers and medical malpractice lawsuits have
become as much a part of the medical scene as the doctors themselves
nowadays. Medical malpractice lawsuits abound and not surprisingly,
lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank. And like it or not, the
enormous costs associated with medical malpractice litigation is falling
right smack dab in the laps of businesses and consumers alike. Those laps
are our laps, in case you’re the least bit interested.
Medical malpractice lawsuits levied against
sleazy physicians who conduct themselves in an unprofessional manner are
one thing. There can be little debate that sloppy and corrupt doctors who
slime their way around the profession deserve to be drummed out of
business - and as quickly as possible. These quacks are a blight on the
profession and a drain on its resources. Fortunately, there’s certainly no
shortage of seedy, sleazy lawyers who are ready, willing and able to do
the drumming.
