Comments on: Speaking Out about Rationing http://www.healthworksaz.org/speaking-out-about-rationing/ HealthWorksAZ Blog Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:30:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Protect negligence? http://www.healthworksaz.org/speaking-out-about-rationing/comment-page-1/#comment-8 Protect negligence? Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:01:44 +0000 http://healthworksaz.org/?p=195#comment-8 Our (enumerated in the constitution) right to seek redress in civil courts for torts comitted against us is the wedge that buffers cost pressures. Without the pressure of legal action negligence is protects, there is no check on the pressures to withold care, medicine, diagnostic tools from patients so prevalent in the system. Most instensive safety efforts in hospitals are related to interest in patient well-being, but mainly because errors that hurt patients can cost profits via litigation risk.<br><br>Tort law is what protects us. It's not THE major cost driver, despite what people think they know about it- medical advances and end-of-life care are. Especially in the current climate of rationing and time pressures on doctors to see patients in high volume, with declines in listening skills and hands-on physical examination skills, and heavy reliance on testing that nobody wants to pay for, I'm unwilling to give up the right to sue when my life is taken or ruined or harmed as a result of negligent care. Our (enumerated in the constitution) right to seek redress in civil courts for torts comitted against us is the wedge that buffers cost pressures. Without the pressure of legal action negligence is protects, there is no check on the pressures to withold care, medicine, diagnostic tools from patients so prevalent in the system. Most instensive safety efforts in hospitals are related to interest in patient well-being, but mainly because errors that hurt patients can cost profits via litigation risk.

Tort law is what protects us. It's not THE major cost driver, despite what people think they know about it- medical advances and end-of-life care are. Especially in the current climate of rationing and time pressures on doctors to see patients in high volume, with declines in listening skills and hands-on physical examination skills, and heavy reliance on testing that nobody wants to pay for, I'm unwilling to give up the right to sue when my life is taken or ruined or harmed as a result of negligent care.

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