Personal injury lawyers and unharmed plaintiffs abuse the system

Personal injury lawyers often recruit unharmed plaintiffs in an attempt to win big money. These unharmed plaintiffs take compensation away from those patients who have truly been harmed

* Personal injury lawyers have found attacking our healthcare system to be a gold mine. From 2003 to 2004, personal injury lawyers received more than $18 million from medical malpractice lawsuits alone. ("Trial Lawyer Investment Pays Dividends," PRNewswire, May 8, 2006)

* In a scandal that has rocked the U.S. legal system, Dr. Ray Harron made more than $5 million for his work as an "expert-for-hire" in diagnosing many fraudulent silicosis and asbestosis claims. Harron is one of several doctors who contributed diagnoses for more than 20,000 lawsuits. In one day alone, Harron diagnosed 515 people - meaning he had less than one minute a piece to read X-rays and make diagnoses if he worked an eight-hour day. Harron and others were paid significantly more by screening companies for making positive diagnoses. ("Beware the B-Readers," The Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2006)

* Millions of dollars in compensation that should be going to critically ill and dying victims of asbestos exposure is being paid to people who are not sick.

* A study by Academic Radiology had a board of independent doctors reviewchest X-rays that had been entered as evidence by trial lawyers in asbestos lawsuits. In the original trials, doctors paid by trial lawyers to serve as "expert" witnesses concluded that 96 percent of the X-rays showed asbestos-related abnormalities. Doctors conducting the study found that fewer than 5 percent of the X-rays showed such damage. ("The Great Asbestos Deception," San Diego Union-Tribune, August 13, 2004).

* Of the money paid out to date from the largest asbestos trust fund, 60 percent of those payouts have gone to non-injured plaintiffs - each of whom have received an estimated $60,000 despite their lack of injury. ("Diagnosing for Dollars," Fortune, June 13, 2005)

* The legitimacy of evidence used in Fen-Phen class action lawsuits across the nation has been called into question in light of the arrests of former class action plaintiffs in Jefferson County, Mississippi. The former plaintiffs allegedly faked prescriptions of the diet drug in order to collect $250,000 from the $400 million settlement. ("Fen-Phen Arrest Revive Rap on County," Jackson Clarion Ledger, August 7, 2004)

* Since its widely used cholesterol-lowering drug Baycol was withdrawn from the market, Bayer is facing more than 8,000 lawsuits. The New York Times notes that at least 6,000 of those lawsuits, however, are being filed by people who did not suffer any side effects whatsoever. (Scott Gotlieb, M.D., The New York Times, February 26, 2003)

Outrageous personal injury lawyer advertising frightens doctors and patients

* Almost 80 percent of Americans believe advertising by personal injury lawyers encourages people to sue even if they have not been injured. (Sick of Lawsuits National Survey, Conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, August 16-18, 2005)

* Twenty-five percent of patients said they would immediately stop taking a prescribed drug if they saw an ad for a lawsuit involving that drug. (Pharmaceutical Liability Survey, Harris Interactive, July 15, 2003)

* Nine mental health patients in South Mississippi stopped taking their prescribed medications after seeing personal injury lawyer advertising regarding Zyprexa and Risperdal - drugs used to treat patients with schizophrenia and bipolar mania. "People see these ads and they think that they're bad for them, so they quit taking them," said Teri Breister, executive director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in Mississippi. "But these patients' lives have come apart again. Every time they stop taking their medications, the episodes become worse." ("Tort Advertisements Worry Some Health Advocates," Biloxi Sun Herald, March 21, 2004)

Source






THE GERMAN MELTDOWN

In the past few months, hordes of white-coated doctors have made regular - and noisy - appearances on the streets of German big cities. More than 12,000 employees of university and state hospitals in nine German states have protested long hours and pay levels far below that of their colleagues in the rest of Europe. "The working conditions at the clinics are getting worse and worse," says Athanasios Drougias, of the Marburger Bund, Germany's biggest doctors' union with nearly 105,000 members. And the head of that union, Frank Ulrich Montgomery, recently told German radio that 1 in 3 doctors are now seeking work outside of Germany because of poor working conditions.

The high-profile strikes at about 40 hospitals over the past few months are drawing attention to the difficult working conditions faced by the nation's primary caregivers. But they're also revealing something else: the troubles facing Germany's over-extended social-welfare model, and the long road Angela Merkel's government faces in correcting it. Germany is suffering from rocketing public spending costs and an inflexible labor market that critics say has scared off investors and contributed to the fact that 4.5 million Germans are out of work.

Though still a world-beater in exports, Germany hasn't shown the fervor that economists say is needed to trim social services and battle unemployment. As a result, Europe's traditional economic engine has faltered as countries with more dynamic labor-market policies - such as Britain and Sweden - thrive. The jobless rates of the two economies, at 4.7 and 6.4 percent respectively, are well below that of Germany, which is hovering around 11 percent. More flexibility in their hiring and firing laws, and a willingness to pay top money for high- quality labor, has made Sweden and Britain serious competitors for German medical talent.

In the past three years, doctors have been "fleeing the country," says Mr. Drougias. According to one German doctors' association, 12,000 German doctors are working abroad. Most are on short assignment in the US, says Roland Ilzhoefer, the organization's spokesman. But at last count, 2,600 were registered in Great Britain. More than 1,000 others are in Scandinavian countries, he adds. "We know that doctors here are unhappy with working conditions and the large amount of bureaucracy," he says. "But ... it also has a lot to do with money. They can earn double or triple the amount abroad."

A 2004 comparative study of doctors' wages, conducted by the London-based National Economic Research Associates for the British Department of Health, confirms the claim. Considered by German experts to be the latest and most viable such study, the report acknowledges the difficulty of drawing exact comparisons because of the disparate ways in which countries and research institutes calculate and collect data. Nevertheless, a general trend is clear: Estimates of hospital doctors' average annual earnings in 2002 ranged from $35,000 to $56,000 in Germany; $127,285 in Britain; and $165,000 to $268,000 in the US. Swedish hospital doctor salaries were estimated at only $56,000 a year - similar to the German figures.

The departure of young doctors, coupled with a decreasing number of medical students, has already had an impact on Germany's hospitals, where 3,000 positions are unfilled at the moment, says Mr. Ilzhoefer. The German government seems well aware of this new reality. Chancellor Angela Merkel has called healthcare reform "more difficult than any other" that Germany is being forced to undertake.

The system, which provides patients comprehensive coverage for low monthly payments, currently costs the government 143 euros ($183) billion a year, says Jochen Pimpertz at the Institute for German Economy in Cologne. But employers also shoulder considerable economic burden for the plan. As it stands, they must pay an additional 6.5 percent of an employee's salary toward healthcare. Mr. Pimpertz says the number is already among the highest in Europe, and says that it will only rise in the coming years. As it rises, hiring new workers will become more expensive - and thus less likely to happen, making Germany's labor market less competitive, he says. "Increasing healthcare payments lead to increasing labor costs for companies," says Pimpertz. "That is surely one of the biggest disadvantages to investing in Germany, and it's a major problem for our labor market." The more an employer has to pay for his employee's coverage, the more he is likely to pull up stakes and move on.

"Climbing healthcare costs mean climbing labor costs," says Max Hoefer, director of the German Institute for Health Economics. "This makes products more expensive and leads to automation and, eventually, job cuts." Government proposals for healthcare reform have been stalled by political bickering. The migration abroad, meanwhile, shows no signs of stopping, says Ilzhoefer. In addition, those who do stay are increasingly eyeing other options. "They're no longer going into patient care," he says. "They're becoming medical journalists or working for pharmaceutical companies and consultancy groups."

Source

***************************

For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation. Both Australia and Sweden have large private sector health systems with government reimbursement for privately-provided services so can a purely private system with some level of government reimbursement or insurance for the poor be so hard to do?

Comments? Email me here. If there are no recent posts here, the mirror site may be more up to date. My Home Page is here or here.

***************************