Now I shall begin with the counter-arguments:
Let us turn our attention to hndog609's quote.
I asserted that the insurance companies settled because they saw probable proof of liability. hndog609 did not buy this argument and stated:
"This is tantamount to arguing over whether you got bit in the arse by a german shepard or doberman. By your link over 229 million dollars was paid out in just 2008 in just TN. The only reason that number isn't higher is precisely why there are so many out of court settlements."
Hence, I guess hndog609 is indirectly asserting that the insurance companies just want to hedge their bets because of a real chance of getting hit at trial.
But let us turn our attention away from speculation and toward real facts. In 2008, there were 5 verdicts in favor of patients with 4 actually paid. See the 2009 report at p. 7. On the other hand, there were 420 verdicts wherein the jury awarded $0 damages to the patients. Same page. Thus, for those cases that make it to a jury verdict, roughly 1.2% result in a verdict for the plaintiff. 98.8% result in verdicts for the doctors. Somewhat staggering until you factor in the cases that don't even make it to trial - cases in which the patient just gives up and dismisses his own claim or a judge dismisses the claim prior to trial. This number for 2008 is 2227. Therefore, for all claims in 2008, roughly 84% resulted in NOTHING for the patient.
Some uninformed may assert that this means that most of the claims are frivolous. However, frivolous cases are subject to sanction under Rule 11. Furthermore, I would point out that medical malpractice cases are unique in many ways from your standard car wreck case. Here's why. In a medical malpractice case, you must present the testimony of a competent medical expert in order to survive summary dismissal. In 2011 you have to have expert proof lined up before you file your case. This can be a be a problem. The statute of limitations in Tennessee is one year. But many times the alleged malpractice isn't even discovered until late in the game - ie. - dang doc, my stomach hurts all the time. Don't worry, it's just your body recovering from the surgery - it should get better with time. Let's just wait and see if it gets better. (typically a reasonable plan). Meanwhile, the doggone towel in your stomach is rotting until you can't take it anymore and get an xray. Or, while it is clear that malpractice occurred, the patient may not suffer significant injury until much later - ie. the doc takes out the wrong lymph node and leaves the cancerous one to keep growing. Did the malpractice cause damage? You have to wait and see. That's just one line of problems. Another is that the malpractice insurance carriers will not allow their insureds to testify against each other. State Volunteer is the largest insurer in TN for docs (80%?). And docs own the company. So it's a problem to find a doctor expert -so the patient has to go out of state. Hence, the expensive expert becomes even more expensive because everything has to be done out of state. But it has to be a contiguous state - not some yankee jake legged doc - a real southern doc. Thus, there is an extreme cost prohibitive hurdle to pursuing a malpractice case in Tennessee. Further, sometimes a patient has to hire 3 or 4 different kinds of experts in order to get to trial. But how would you like to gamble with 50k and have a statistically proven 98% chance of losing at trial?
I will continue later, but I would point out that in 2009, State Volunteer made a profit of $72,000,000 and gave its doctor-owners a dividend of $20,000,00. This reduced premiums by about 8%.
With that parting shot, I shall return to continue with the other arguments.
