Posted On: May 9, 2006, 1:35 pm CDT

Posted By: Woo Hoo way to go

My personal experience with underwriting medical malpractice stems from a good example of why we shouldn't place a cap on expenses. A doctor we used to insure over the time frame of 12 years had 6 medical claims. Only one of which I would consider "frivolous" . Some of the other claims that were settled scared the hell out of me. There is one claim where this doctor failed to diagnose for 2 ½ years of care that a woman had cancer. She died- oopsie. Or when he performed a cervical manipulation without consent and ruptured a right vertebral artery which caused the woman to have a stroke. My bad…

So what price do you set for the pain and suffering of a lost loved one, or the loss of the ability to have children? 100,000? 200,000? It boils down to one thing- other doctors know when a colleague shouldn't be in practice yet turn their heads away instead of blowing the whistle. Want lower rates??? Get rid of the bad apples. Claims over 50,000 should be reported to the Medical Board. Costs are going up because nobody is watching the kids. Stop penalizing the victims and start taking the doctors to task for their actions. They screw up they pay, one way or another. Capping will only enable the bad apples to stay in practice.