I've heard it from him a few times now. He talks about how Doctors are leaving certain states, or are retiring early for fear of being sued. He emphasizes the fact that America is losing OB/GYN's due to exploding malpractice insurance rates.
Now, why would he bring up that particular practice (OB/GYN)?
Now, why would he bring up that particular practice (OB/GYN)?
I've been hearing some clips of his speeches in which he mentions this issue, but I hadn't really analyzed his motivation. Of course we want doctors available for all of us, and the suits are literally threatening our health more and more every day. Tort reform would be a good thing.
But now that you ask this question, I have to think. Perhaps since he's been campaigning in part on the necessity of family values, he feels that this would strengthen families (in a different and more direct way than the federal marriage amendment).
I LOVE 8x8's response to the wrong war, wrong time thread where Kerry is now stealing a position, verbatim, that he attacked in the primaries. That is huge and should be the guts of a commercial attack on his ability to lead. He is truly a sad, sad candidate for the office of the presidency. I wonder if he knows his own name when he wakes up in the morning.
OB/GYN have the highest lawsuit rate, I believe, for two simple reasons:
1) Its the most emotional type of medicine, it deals with either womans ability to reproduce or the delivery of a baby. Mistake, tragedy in either case results in a very emotional and long term effect for the families. If a tragedy happens during delivery and a baby is born with a birth defect the family then has the lifetime of this baby to live with it, so the rewards would tend to be higher.
2) Its a type of medicine that sooner or later 1/2 the population needs (woman) and most families need (birth/pregnancy), so its very visible. Relate it to some other high risk speciality, like brain surgeon, and most folks won't need them, AND when you do, bad things are somewhat more expected to happen.
I love Bush's new talking point...
