Unfortunately the the vast majority of the Tort reform argument is a red herring.
If you or your mother or child was seriously and permanently injured, maybe even killed by a doctors proven and avoidable malpractice in a court of law would you just happily say... Oh, that's alright I don't want to raise healthcare costs???
Certainly not! The fact is our judicial system is the ONLY check and balance a private citizen has when it comes to medical malpractice. That right of recourse should not be taken away from you and I... and the rest of the American people.
I understand what you are saying though. And I understand that it seems like some judgments are sky high... and I agree some are. And there may be some fair way to cap some types of damages that are proven to be not extremely egregious.
But let me tell you what happens in all the many cases you never hear about. This actually happened to me.
My daughter when she was in high school was inside a friends house where for no reason a dog they had (a Chow/Rottweiler mix) snapped and mauled my daughter. The people who owned the dog not only had Homeowners Insurance but this same dog had attacked & hospitalized a family member (a cousin) in the past.
Now at the time she was Captain of the Girls Varsity Basketball Team. She had to go to the emergency room and have several fairly serious bits and scratches worked on. She was out of school for a week and couldn't even practice with her team let alone play for over a month.
And the INSURANCE COMPANY... they tried to pay NOTHING!!! I had to... HAD TO... take time off work and hire an attorney because the Insurance Company even though they knew they were TOTALLY LIABLE with legal exposure all over the place... practiced a very common technique of denying claims just to see if they might just not be pursued.
In other words they purposely wanted to do the wrong thing and try to avoid their legal obligation. That's what in reality happens a lot.
After I hired the attorney we went up all the way up to the trial and then finally settled. But I can tell you this. In the end the Insurance Company paid out MORE than I would have accepted if they just would have been straight forward with us. Of course my daughter didn't get all that money her attorney took a third... BUT THERE WAS NO OTHER CHOICE BUT TO GET NOTHING!
And that expense was no ones fault other than the Insurance Company... certainly not the injured party.
