Medical votes no solution to fight
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Three amendments on malpractice suits and patient safety passed, but doctors and lawyers remain at odds. By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer.
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TALLAHASSEE -- Doctors and lawyers have been warring for years over why medical malpractice insurance rates are so high and what to do about it.
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Brutal, no-holds-barred fighting should be banned, doctors say.
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I hope the Republicans come prepared to debate health care this year, and they leave the platitudes and slogans home.  Enough of us have been seriously sick, or know someone who has, or have family members who have been or are now. The way the Republicans describe health care, it's as if they've never been through it or don't know anyone who has. I got some pushback, not much, from a casual mention of universal health care a few days ago. Some think the problem can be solved through the "private sector" but that's nonsense. There is no such thing in health care. It's not a free market, as anyone who's been through it can tell you. There's nothing free about it. (Free as in freedom, not as in free beer.) When you check into a hospital you turn over your whole being to the health care system. I can't imagine anything changing that, nor do I think it should. When you're dangerously ill, decisions must be made about you. To people who have never relinquished control, it's a big trip, because that's what you have to do. You spend huge amounts of time waiting. You can't sleep because hospitals are 24-by-7. You're much more likely to get an infection in a hospital, and infection on top of other disease can kill. Even so, people are treated and some even are cured by the system. Lives are definitely prolonged, pain is eased.  Whether we have universal health care or not, it won't change the basics of how health care works, and how unfair it is to be sick and fighting for your life. But there are some things we can change, and if you have a heart, and think about it, I don't see how anyone could be against universal health care and still sleep at night. One commenter said that no one is ever turned away from an emergency room, as if that's all there was to health care.  First, emergency rooms do turn people away, and some of them die. But most disease is not treated in emergency rooms. If you need drugs to treat cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, AIDS, heart disease, depression, arthritis, emphysema, to name a few common chronic diseases -- you're out of luck if you don't have insurance. You could die years before you would with treatment, or might suffer, where if you had good insurance, you wouldn't.  I'm lucky I have good health insurance. It's lucky that I lived in Massachusetts when my COBRA policy expired, it's the one state in the US that has liberalized health insurance. I'm lucky that I can afford the monthly payments. I'm lucky. But why should getting the care and treatment you need depend on luck? We can do so much better. And I think our country would do better with a healthy population that knows if they, or someone they love, got sick they'll the help they need. It'll be interesting to see if we can get McCain to talk about this, if he turns out to be the Republcan nominee. The Republicans have never been responslble about this issue. It's of huge importance to Americans, and McCain presents himself as an honest person. He must understand how the health care system actually works. He's been through it himself, probably many times.  BTW, Hillary's passion for computerizing medical records is a good thing. She's right, a lot of money could be saved, the system could be made much more efficient, people would get better treatment, and lives would be saved. The sooner we get busy doing this, the better it will be for all of us.
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British heart doctors are trying to defeat a proposal to end government coverage of drug-coated heart stents, tiny metal-mesh tubes that prop open clogged arteries.
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The House of Representatives on Thursday failed to overturn President George W. Bush's veto of a plan to expand a popular children's health care program and pay for it by raising tobacco taxes.
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An Italian judge rejected a paralyzed man's request to be removed from a respirator Saturday, ruling that the law does not permit the denial of lifesaving care and urging lawmakers to confront the issue.Comment
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The U.S. President has said that the problem with health care is the lawyers. He doesn't seem to think that there are any other problems we should be concerned about, and the free market is the best way to determine how much you would be willing to pay for health care. The President is pushing our current system, and his challenger is doing the same.
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House supporters tried Thursday to revive a health bill they said would aid more of the nation's most vulnerable children, but they appeared to lack the votes needed to override President Bush's veto.
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Department of Veterans Affairs doctors are furious over a recent decision by the Pentagon to block their access to medical information needed to treat severely injured troops arriving at VA hospitals from Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Rivaling Bush vs. Kerry for bitterness, doctors and trial lawyers are squaring off this fall in an unprecedented four-state struggle over limiting malpractice awards. The volatile issue is in voters' hands and each side is desperate to win, spending millions of dollars to make their cases and portray the other side as greedy.
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Rivaling Bush vs. Kerry for bitterness, doctors and trial lawyers are squaring off this fall in an unprecedented four-state struggle over limiting malpractice awards...
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GPs have given the government a vote of no confidence over its handling of the NHS.
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The vote left in doubt the fate of a bipartisan resolution opposing President Bushâs troop buildup in Iraq.
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Supporters of a childrenâs health insurance bill failed, as expected, to override President Bushâs veto, falling 13 votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority of those present.
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Leading UK doctors call for a total ban on brutal, no-holds-barred fighting.
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The U.S. House of Representatives, in its last days under Republican control, failed on Wednesday to pass a bill that would have required doctors to offer painkillers for fetuses before they abort them.