There is an element of "keeping the doctor honest" when he knows he can be sued for negligence. Not ordering a particular test that may show the early signs of, say, cancer may ultimately cost you your life.

One of the healthcare bills (not sure if it's in the House or Senate version) establishes a percentile for doctors and how much it costs for the stuff they order for their patients. The upper 10% (IIRC) would be penalized monetarily by decreased payments for ordering "too much stuff". This is not a one time deal either; it is a year after year, continual competition to not be in the upper 10 percentile. So in theory, as time went by and docs tried like hell to be 89% or below, less and less would be ordered. A constantly downward utilization of medical resources. Now that's one way of controlling healthcare costs, but do you or your loved ones want to be in the running to help your doc make it out of the upper 10 percentile? Like he ain't gonna order shit he should?

Obviously the answer would be to make sure the above mentioned assinine proposal never gets implemented. However, if it does there needs to be a way to make sure your doc has more to worry about than just not getting reduced payments from the gubment––-like he can still get his ass sued off so it'll make him more likely to order what needs to be done.

I'm not a fan of lawyers, nor am I anti-physician. In fact the gubment would be pitting us against one another if something like that gets into law, in effect a created situation.

Put it this way: if a doc doesn't order a particular diagnostic test because of it's cost and therefore it's less likely to push him over the top expenditure-wise in the gubment's eyes, and said test would have detected the cancer that ultimately kills your wife a year later he should be able to be sued. Sure, she continues to have symptoms and eventually he orders the test but by then you hear the too-often repeated "If we'd only found it in time, now it's too late and has spread too far".

Yeah, there is always someone to blame, and somebody to sue... I guess...

I say get rid of lawyers, and make the whole thing cheaper.

And ZERO control by .gov. Frankly, I'd trust a doctor about my health more than I would a lawyer every day...

And if you are worried about your doctors opinion so much that you are the suing kind (I have never sued anyone in my entire life, and never will) go get another doctors opinion...

If doctors did not have to worry about getting sued they could cut their costs tremendously (in ~half-?)...

I say get rid of all the attorneys with their hands in the health care cookie jar...

I agree that most docs now would err on behalf of their patients. But put into an artificially created competition with others to control costs then other motives might take precedence.

Agreed. I could easily see it happening?

And what about the cases where the doctor amputates the wrong leg?  Or the surgeon leaves a clamp in the patient after surgery?  The best kind of tort reform for medicine would be simple limitations on pain and suffering damages, but no limitations on actual damages.

Fair enough. Still holds a level of accountability.