OBGYN doctors set weight limit for new patients

[brimic]

It's inefficient and unfair to ask individuals to carry insurance against the mistakes of highly trained experts, who are themselves the only people in a good position to understand the risks.

Orlly?
You actually think its unfair to expect people to carry life or disability insurance- ie be responsible for their own lives?

[De Selby]

Orlly?
You actually think its unfair to expect people to carry life or disability insurance- ie be responsible for their own lives?

Uh, no - what does life insurance have to do with this? 

[sumpnz]

Uh, no - what does life insurance have to do with this? 

Life insurance has everything to do with it.  Short of taking part in some exclusionary activity (e.g. flying small airplanes, skydiving, etc) it pays out no matter what you were doing when you died.  No matter if it was a doc's mistake, you're own reckless driving, or taking on a risk due to association with someone else's activity.  That's what called taking care of yourself and your family. 

I carry enough life insurance to make sure that my wife and kids are financially taken care if I die.  I carry enough disability insurance to make sure that my family and I are financially taken care if I am disabled.

It doesn't matter if some doctor screws up, or I screw up, or some random person screws up.  That is being responsible for my own life.  Not counting on the ability to sue whoever was at fault.

[De Selby]

And that's all fine and good - but you having life insurance doesn't mean other people's negligence should be free to them. 

Why should a negligent doctor benefit from your own efforts to care for your family?  That is doubly unreasonable.

[dogmush]

Human's aren't engines. Every time that a med procedure goes bad isn't a result of a negligent doctor. Sometimes *expletive deleted*it just happens.

Our tort aystem seems to be set up on the beliefs you just articulated, sadly reality isin't.

As to sueing doctors being unprofitable; bullshit.

[brimic]

And that's all fine and good - but you having life insurance doesn't mean other people's negligence should be free to them.

Right. Why bother with life insurance to cover you if in the event of a dangerous or risky procedure, you die. I mean ambulance chasers will recover the money for you or your next of kin withhout them needing to put money up front.

[De Selby]

Human's aren't engines. Every time that a med procedure goes bad isn't a result of a negligent doctor. Sometimes *expletive deleted* just happens.

Our tort aystem seems to be set up on the beliefs you just articulated, sadly reality isin't.

As to sueing doctors being unprofitable; bull*expletive deleted*.

Yeah, and you can't sue for every procedure that goes wrong and expect to win. Most who sue doctors do not win.  Doctors enjoy procedural advantages in torts that make suing them extremely unattractive and unprofitable.

No need to take my word for it - ask around your local profession.  See how many tell you they'd do better if they specialized in med mal.

[dogmush]

No need to take my word for it - ask around your local profession.  See how many tell you they'd do better if they specialized in med mal.

I don't have to ask.  I can turn on a TV during normal working hours and see how many of my local lawyer's do specialize in med mal.  In fact I have one in my Reserve unit.  He has often said that one of the more lucrative things he can do is sue and subsequently settle with hospitals over old folks or kids.   

[De Selby]

I don't have to ask.  I can turn on a TV during normal working hours and see how many of my local lawyer's do specialize in med mal.  In fact I have one in my Reserve unit.  He has often said that one of the more lucrative things he can do is sue and subsequently settle with hospitals over old folks or kids.   

You might want to ask him about his practice in detail - you'll be surprised.

It's really an interesting phenomenon - when I was in law school, everyone who commented on it warned against med mal as a business model.  Of course I also learned how much tougher and more expensive it is to sue a doctor.

When I got out and started working, all the PI/ambulance chasers I knew took med mal cases only on the rarest of occassions - too expensive and too much of a crapshoot otherwise.  Yeah, everyone knows John Edwards made a fortune on it, but everyone knows Michael Jordan made a fortune playing ball too.  Edwards is the legal equivalent.

The only place I can find people who know how profitable med mal lawsuits are is outside the legal profession. 

[birdman]

You might want to ask him about his practice in detail - you'll be surprised.

It's really an interesting phenomenon - when I was in law school, everyone who commented on it warned against med mal as a business model.  Of course I also learned how much tougher and more expensive it is to sue a doctor.

When I got out and started working, all the PI/ambulance chasers I knew took med mal cases only on the rarest of occassions - too expensive and too much of a crapshoot otherwise.  Yeah, everyone knows John Edwards made a fortune on it, but everyone knows Michael Jordan made a fortune playing ball too.  Edwards is the legal equivalent.

The only place I can find people who know how profitable med mal lawsuits are is outside the legal profession. 

Precisely, it's selection and success bias, people in general have a long memory fir the successes, and short for the failures,  is is probably true that it is lucrative to settle with a hospital over old people or kids, BUT averaged over all the cases, it's probably not as extreme..there are, after all, a limited supply of injured old people and kids who have been subject to malpractice....why else would lawyers need to advertise that service?  (limited client pool, stiff competition). If you want to make bank in law, I've always heard it's IP (consistent), M&A, or tax...anything that gives you the ability to bill companies, not people.

[wacki]

My sister is OB-GYN and I'm a scientist that works with the medical community.  Fat cells produce estrogen and too much estrogen can cause all sorts of issues including infertility.   Try telling a fat woman she's too fat to get pregnant... it doesn't go over well.

Not sure how much I'm at liberty to say but doctors do need special equipment / help to work on obese people (which insurance companies don't want to pay for) and all sorts of legal issues start to pop up that's to our over-lawyer-ed country.  Also, in this day in age if there is something wrong with the the medical system there's usually a politician who has been tinkering with that aspect of the system.

Long story short, I'd actually talk to a OB-GYN about the mess they have to deal with before you get super angry about the situation.