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[palsch]

What's 'Tort Reform?' Can't tell if Reelya was being sarcastic and going off on the lawsuitativeness (I know there's an actual word for it, but can't quite remember it) of some people or is being serious.

It's a common argument but I don't think much comes of it.

There are three major expenses related to lawsuits around medical care and malpractice;

1) Payments to harmed or simply suing patients. These may be damages awarded or settlements. Many of these are well justified or even necessary for patients to recoup loss of earnings or medical costs from bad practice. Others are less so, and can be valid targets of tort reform. Most tort reform focuses on limiting the high end of claims, which (IMO) is misguided as such claims have tougher standards to pay out.

2) Doctors paying for insurance for the former. This is a major cost for most doctors and so drives up the wages necessary for them to cover their expenses. This can be entirely lumped in with the former as so long as malpractice costs are a thing, so is malpractice insurance.

3) 'Defensive medicine'. This is ordering extra tests even once a doctor is confident of a treatment to improve the paper trail in case of litigation. I've seen evidence that this doesn't reduce with tort reform (eg, limiting payments); the fear of a malpractice suit in general is enough to encourage such behaviour. It also has an overlap with the profit motive of ordering anything that can be billed in a private system.

The papers I've seen put the total cost of this at less than 3% of the total cost of healthcare in the US. Not negligable, but not a substantial win even if you eliminated it. And many of those costs are not going away, either because they are justified payouts or simply not addressed by the tort reforms on the table. Even 1% savings would be incredibly hard, in an area that is projecting 6.5% cost growth this year (down from double figure pre-Obama).

I can try to dig out some sources on this at some point if people are still interested.

[sluissa]

I actually can't watch that video. Banned in Canada... typically a false claim.

So why was Hot Coffee legitimate and our view of it was just corporate spin doctoring?

McDonalds intentionally heated (and still does, I believe) their coffee far beyond what is needed to brew the coffee, keeping it in the pot only a few degrees below boiling. They say people don't always immediately drink their coffee and want it to stay hot for a while. I personally find it annoying their coffee is too hot to even touch immediately. The woman suffered severe burns. (Not talking about ouch, my tongue burns, but severe, second, and I think even third degree burns to large portions of her legs. This is all from memory, from watching it years ago, but the number of something like 20-40% of her body had burns of some level.) She went to the hospital and had medical expenses as a result. She wasn't seeking the payout she eventually got. Her desired payout was much lower and mostly just to cover said medical expenses. The real payout was as a result of the judge tacking on a punitive amount above what was sued for because the judge felt like McDonald's was at fault and should be punished for it.

The public spin was that someone was trying to take advantage of McDonald's to get a ton of money, which is not really the case.

(If I'm horribly wrong here or missed something vital, someone please correct me. I apologize)

[Lord Shonus]

The Hot Coffee Lady suit was a 100% legitimate case in which an elderly woman suffered third-degree burns from spilling a cup of freshly-purchased Mcdonalds coffee on her. The injuries were a result of two factors, both of which were McDonalds's fault. First, the lid on the cup was not put on the cup correctly, causing it to spill unexpectedly. Second, the coffee was kept at an extremely high temperature, far beyond any reasonable standard. In the case of the latter factor, this was, in fact, a McDonalds company policy that they had been repeatedly cited for, but that they had kept on the grounds that a lot of people get coffee on the way to work, and if it cools down too much by the time the customer gets to work, that customer will buy coffee somewhere closer.

Initially, the woman only sued for her $20,000 medical costs - a figure that by itself should prove that it wasn't a frivolous suit. The company flatly refused to pay more than $800. Initially, she was awarded $160,000 actual and $2,700,000 punitive damages, with the figure reduced to $640,000 by the judge.


Punitive damages are a part of the American legal system precisely because most companies make so much money that they could easily ignore safety defects and pay off anybody who dares to complain - if it would cost five million dollars to fix a problem that statistically  might kill four people, it is cheaper just to settle the wrongful death suits. To ensure that any lawsuit can potentially hurt, the law allows open-ended damages to be tacked on to the judgement (although appeals courts can and usually do reduce them if they get too high), ensuring that even the richest corporation will fix problems before they reach the consumer.

[TempAcc]

So, can anyone tell me how exactly Dubya went from "the guy who murdered tons of people for oil in iraq" to "funny poncho man that goes to talkshows and people now clap to for no reason"?

[Jopax]

Humor=tragedy+time

I'm guessing enough time has passed that his general idiocy/incompetence is only funny now, instead of kinda scary.

Especially when you compare him to the current trainwreck in chief :V

[misko27]

What's 'Tort Reform?' Can't tell if Reelya was being sarcastic and going off on the lawsuitativeness (I know there's an actual word for it, but can't quite remember it) of some people or is being serious.

Litigious. Fun fact: Athenians were known for litigiousness, to the point that to be litigious was patriotic.

I get a bit tired of this whole barrel of fish.

Healthcare is expensive:

Counter-point: Healthcare costs have been increasing at the lowest rate in years! And without any of your needed reforms. Obamacare singlehandedly increased the lifespan of the Medicaid Trust by 13 years. And yet why does no one discuss this? You are talking as if none of this was true.

So, can anyone tell me how exactly Dubya went from "the guy who murdered tons of people for oil in iraq" to "funny poncho man that goes to talkshows and people now clap to for no reason"?

Republicans spent the last 8 years hating Obama, and Democrats are now too focused on Trump to hate anyone else.

[RedKing]

I think the fact that Dubya has essentially said, "Wow, the new guy is an asshole" helps. But yeah, it's a weird disassociative thing to find myself feeling sympathy for a guy whose name I once swore I wouldn't allow spoken in my presence.

[Neonivek]

The problem is that America isn't great like it used to...

Actually what is funny is Trump miiight actually have something to stand on as far as America not being great anymore.

Remember back when everyone feared America might roll up to them and destroy them? Yeah we don't have that anymore.

[Reelya]

Notably, nobody is inviting Dick Cheney anywhere ...

Especially considering most of the really disgusting stuff stops on the doorsteps of Cheney and Rumsfeld, guys who have been together all the way through Nixon / Reagan / Bush I / Bush II administrations.

[Neonivek]

Also does Donald Trump have anything to gain from tanking the economy?

[EnigmaticHat]

So, can anyone tell me how exactly Dubya went from "the guy who murdered tons of people for oil in iraq" to "funny poncho man that goes to talkshows and people now clap to for no reason"?

1. Some people never stopped supporting him.  Depending on where you go this could be "most people".
2. "Lol he paints dogs now"
3.  People (rightly or wrongly) view Bush as a kind of naive puppet of Dick Cheney.

[sluissa]

Also does Donald Trump have anything to gain from tanking the economy?

Considering we still don't know the exact details of his finances and properties, overseas or domestic, he just might.


EDIT:

So, can anyone tell me how exactly Dubya went from "the guy who murdered tons of people for oil in iraq" to "funny poncho man that goes to talkshows and people now clap to for no reason"?

1. Some people never stopped supporting him.  Depending on where you go this could be "most people".
2. "Lol he paints dogs now"
3.  People (rightly or wrongly) view Bush as a kind of naive puppet of Dick Cheney.

For me, it began right here: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/abc-george-bushs-inauguration-day-letter-barack-obama/story?id=44896610

I railed against him fiercely while he was in office, and I felt very little respect for him or his decisions, but this letter was the first time I actually felt like I saw the man beyond the politics. He was, for better or worse, trying to do a good job, what he thought was right. For the first time I got a taste of the idea that you can disagree with someone without hating them. His cooperation and willingness to work with Obama on the transition of power pushed me to see him as something other than the enemy. He was a man with great power and influence and made decisions I didn't agree with. But he was just a man, prone to the same mistakes and follies as any of us. Capable of the same good and kindness as any of us. It was unfair to him and it was unfair to the half the country that voted for him to view them as this faceless "other" enemy. To consider them something so far removed from myself that I could never see eye to eye.

His opinions might have been different. I might have disagreed with his methods. But wiping away all the details, he just wanted what was best for the country. That shows in the way he calmly passed the mantle on to the next president, a man offered up by his opposition and in some ways as much of his opposite as I felt I was.

I'm not saying that my opinion of him changed in an instant on that day. But that was the turning point for me. When I began to realize it was dumb to feel that much hate for anyone.

[Neonivek]

Also does Donald Trump have anything to gain from tanking the economy?

Considering we still don't know the exact details of his finances and properties, overseas or domestic, he just might.

And oddly enough the whole tanking the economy thing.

Was actually part of his platform... Sooo people should have expected it (short term gains for serious long term problems)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Even if you take Bush at his face, he's better in most every way than Trump, and I can prove it: Imagine how Donald Trump would manage the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

Do you foresee any statements of universal dignity to counterbalance a moderate declaration that we will seek those responsible for justice? Can you even imagine Trump doing anything like Bush's speech about how even if the attacks are the result of a group of Islamic terrorists that we are not waging a war against Islam? Can you imagine Trump actually listening to the advice of someone like Mattis or McMaster who were literally involved in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars?

[misko27]

So, a few points of interest:

First, the Wall has problems. Most of those problems revolve around "Wall costs $20 billion dollars and that money has to come out of something", but also that the wall has not even begun according to Trump's budget chief, and Republican Leaders are raising concerns. It's certainly not dead, but it looks like it'll be a long slog. For what it's worth, illegal movement across our southern border has dropped 40% one month into the Trump Administration, so there's now a question of whether a wall is even necessary with Trump at the helm.

Second, if you were expecting coordination and rallying behind the Obamacare bill, you'll be disappointed. Trump has proclaimed his support for the bill (giving the leadership some juice), but has stated his openness to negotiate, emboldening conservatives and critics on the right who want to hold out for more substantial changes. In practice both sides now think they have his backing, and if the conservatives win, the moderates balk.

Finally, an interesting article about thinking about Donald ordering investigations as an extension of his habit of using lawsuits as a private businessman. Of course, the difference is, he has a lot more to lose if the investigations find nothing, or worse, find something unexpected.

Even if you take Bush at his face, he's better in most every way than Trump, and I can prove it: Imagine how Donald Trump would manage the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

Do you foresee any statements of universal dignity to counterbalance a moderate declaration that we will seek those responsible for justice? Can you even imagine Trump doing anything like Bush's speech about how even if the attacks are the result of a group of Islamic terrorists that we are not waging a war against Islam? Can you imagine Trump actually listening to the advice of someone like Mattis or McMaster who were literally involved in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars?

I can say exactly what Trump would do. Where Bush echoed the language of moderates, Donald Trump would bring to life the language of Samuel Huntington: a "Clash of Civilizations".

Of course, Donald Trump would never have been elected before 9/11. Unless the Cuban Missile Crisis occured during election season, there's no world where Donald Trump wins pre-9/11. He's too much a creature of the times.