1940's and 50's America had a great healthcare system. Should we just get rid of the Lawyers that screwed it?

Question

I mean the Lawyers the Laws and the Politicians? Instead of creating a NHS why can't we fix what we broke? I mean according to my dad the Doctor mad House calls and Lived in a Nice house in town, But not a Mansion! And Not a poor house due to Insurance costs!

And Steve C at what point did the American Healthcare system become Mostly Non American Doctor Occupied? What percentage did that grow at per year? Does Malpractice Go Down when it Become a National HC System?

ken exactly! and he had ur best interest at heart He was not trying to maim or kill you, and god forbid if something went wrong you did not sue him. What I am saying we can fix this instead of making it a cattle like NHS system, that serves the Politicos only

ash great point but it was still 1940/50's technologies as well. we can thanks computers and science for the advancements Not the law suits.

Answer 1

Yeah lets start with 3 lawyers John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Why is it these idiot leftists always follow lawyers? Aren't lawyers widely regarded as the scum of the earth. And still every election cycle the Demorats are throwing a bunch of lawyers up as their candidates? I think they really do want to destroy my country.

Answer 2

I agree, we need to put a lid on the attorneys. They have driven the cost of medicine and insurance way up. People have to realize that Doctors are not god and are not perfect. Everyone is entitled to make mistakes. I am not too proud to admit that at work I have made some mistakes but I learned from them.

Frivolous lawsuits need to be curtailed. Doctors are under a lot of pressure as is when they are trying to save someones life, Heck I think our health care system would improve if several things happened.

1. People stop using Emergency rooms for their own personal health care clinic. Hence the name Emergency room.
2. People need to stop being vain about their bodies, Cosmetic surgery only if needed.
3. People need to stop taking every pill that is introduced I mean look at all of the commercials of new meds coming out. and the list of possible side effects that go with the comercial.
4. People need to pay attention when their doctor tells them that during or after surgery there may be complications up to and including DEATH.

I can see lawsuits for gross negligence say if the Doctor is under the influence of something and screws up. actually I want criminal charges in that case. But not if it is something unavoidable.

Medicine is not an exact science, everybodys body reacts to things differently so the doctor can't predict what the result will be. WHY does everybody think that doctors are all knowing and should have known that would happen. They are not soothsayers nor psychics. Most doctors that I have meet or visited do their best and whats best for the patient.

Also how many people do not follow the doctors orders and screw themselves up and lie and say that they did follow the orders. Then sue the doctor because they want money.

That is the end of my rant.

Answer 3

Our healthcare system is a mess for many reasons not the least of which is litigation. However, government regulation plays a big part in that as well. In an industry that is literally a “life and death” business it is difficult at best to regulate. I remember house calls too… and the neighborhood family Doctor. Those were simpler times and most weren’t so quick to want to lay blame and greedy to receive restitution for an unfortunate mistake or error.

Many things have contributed to the extreme expense in healthcare. The advancements in medicine we now enjoy come at a cost; sometimes in lives but mostly in cash. The cost of developing new medications is also extremely high. Ridiculously high settlements in malpractice cases also drive up the cost of medicine in the form of higher fees for procedures, and consultations. The bottom line is it doesn’t have to be so expensive.

The liberal solution from the likes of Hillary, Moore, Reid, Kennedy etc… is for the government to take over. Very bad idea! I’ve used a governmentally controlled healthcare system as has anybody who’s been in the military and it sucks. I’m not talking about the care so much as the system itself. I’ve also seen other countries “better” system, as Moore would have us believe. Some are a little better than what our military has but most are much worse.

The answer is not more governmental intervention in our healthcare system it less, less to the point of not being noticeable at all. The free market system will take care of our healthcare woes if allowed to do so. Hillary and the libs hate that because it takes away one of their pet issues.

Limits on settlement awards and deregulation of the drug industry would go a long way in bringing down healthcare costs. As would subsidies/tax breaks to Doctors and hospitals for the purchase of equipment.

Mistakes are going to be made and people are going to die because of them. That’s life and stuff happens but it all won’t magically stop because the government has taken over and it just may get worse.

Answer 4

I am always amazed at how quickly people forget recent history. I see many professed liberals on here railing against the HMO's. Do you know who came up with legislation that created HMO's? It was the democrats in congress led by Senator Ted Kennedy.

I must be as old as your Dad because I remember when doctors made house calls and lived far more modestly. We had medical insurance back then but what it was called was not "health care insurance" but "hospitalization insurance".

When you got sick you paid for your own office visit (extra if you required a house call) and you paid for your own medications. This was a natural incentive to not seek medical attention unless you really needed it.

If something major happened that required hospitalization, that is when your insurance would kick in. The whole idea of having insurance to pay for all of your health care is ludicrous. It is like having car insurance that would pay for every oil change and wiper blade. Can you imagine how much insurance like that would cost?

Car insurance is an excellent analogy. You have car insurance to protect you from the costs of a catastrophic incident such as theft, fire or a collision. The rest of the cost of owning, maintaining and operating your car you pay out of your own pocket. That is how medical insurance used to operate.

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Answer 5

The healthcare system was actually not really screwed over by the lawyers but rather the people who payed them. Lawsuits were made stating that the doctors used dirty tools and often this occured in dirty environments. So they created hospitals, sterile invironments where health care laws could be maintained under strict supervision. Then people still sued the doctors for mistakes, and so malpractice insurance was created so that the doctors could do there job and just like if you got into a car accident, if a misshap occurs **they're doctors not god they're not perfect** they could be covered.

In order to afford to pay the doctors that now had to work in hospitals which cost money to run and keep stocked with the medicines that we need (granted six bucks for a tylenol is a bit much but hey you get what you pay for and you actually pay more for the training it takes to properly hand out that tylenol then for the actual product because again the insurance and the physility) so now health insurance had to be created. So we pay for that.

if we didn't pay for it this way, we'd pay for it in taxes either way it's a required evil in a day and age when everyone is lawsuit happy no doctor in their right mind will do house calls

Again the point is not whether these people were right or wrong in making the suits, just that they were made, complaints were made about the way that doctors handled themselves and thus, things were done to remedy the complaints to make a better safer way of recieving health care, it isn't perfect and it never will be. You have cocky doctors who believe they can save the world who end up killing people. The suits themselves whether they are legit or not is not the case, just that they were made raised the issue of a problem, fixing the problem costs money.

Answer 6

Step back a minute - in those days we all had smaller more modest houses, and the doctor's house was as nice as the banker's house and a lot better than most of the rest of us. Just like now. Kids died from simple diseases. Old folks died young of heart disease. And, nowadays there are problems getting paramedics to go into some city neighborhoods, how in the world are you going to get doctors to go there? Same is true for some rural enclaves...

Lawsuits? If doctors would not close ranks to deny error when they messed up the lawsuits would not be needed, as it is if a doctor makes a mistake and harms my child he is darn well going to go to court; not for money but to get the word out.

Money? Look at the administrative costs of insurance companies and hospital organizations.

In short - 1 - you cannot ever go back and the good old days weren't really all that great. -2- lots of things contribute to the problems we have with our health care system today, it is simplistic to try and point out one thing but guess what, it is never just one thing.

EDIT: Disagree only in that medicine is now a business for profit, big profit; without the ability to press lawsuits the business aspects will continue to run amok; not lawsuits that have ruined it but rather allowing free market principles to determine that certain conditions are too high risk to be insurable and certain procedures will not be covered because of the risk of failure and so on. Like I said you are being simplistic to blame just malpractice although that is part of the equation.

Answer 7

Yes, absolutely. Doctors pay 40% of their income to malpractice insurers. Guess who they pass the costs on to.

YOU and ME!

How about Clintons "Patients Bill of Rights" that have single handedly driven up costs and closed emergency rooms due to bankruptcy around the country.

Answer 8

When I was young our family doctor lived right up the street, I could walk to his office/home in three minutes. If I was too sick, he made house calls. He was a regular person like everyone else. He didn't live in a mansion, he lived in the same kind of house as everyone in the neighborhood. There were many neighborhood doctors spread throughout the city. People knew their doctors and the doctors knew their patients, they were neighbors. I would love to see that part of health-care return. Forty years later I can still recall his office, which was his basement, and his name and face. Health-care on a personal level. He was the family doctor to all of my family, my aunts, uncles and cousins. He knew all of us.

Answer 9

Malpractice insurance amounts to only 0.046% of all medical costs. Frivilous lawsuits! How naive and darling of you to believe that. Read "Death by Medicine" (2003) and find out that the American health care system is the largest cause of death (796,000 each year) and injury (20 million per year) in the United States.

The problem is an epidemic of malpractice.

Answer 10

If only we could go back in time when everything was OK. When it was OK to beat your children and rape your wife. That was a simpler time, when things were great.

People always reminisce that there were simpler times. People also always want a scapegoat. In my state we have med mal reform and doctors do not have to carry insurance above a specified amount. Many other states have that also.