Is There a Trial Lawyer in the House ?

[Torog]

IS THERE A TRIAL LAWYER IN THE HOUSE?

by Ann Coulter
September 19, 2007


The only "crisis" in health care in this country is that doctors are paid too little. (Also they've come up with nothing to help that poor Dennis Kucinich.)

But the Democratic Party treats doctors like they're Klan members. They wail about how much doctors are paid and celebrate the trial lawyers who do absolutely nothing to make society better, but swoop in and steal from the most valuable members of society.

Maybe doctors could get the Democrats to like them if they started suing their patients.

It's only a matter of time before the best and brightest students forget about medical school and go to law school instead. How long can a society based on suing the productive last?

You can make 30 times as much money as doctors by becoming a trial lawyer suing doctors. You need no skills, no superior board scores, no decade of training and no sleepless residency. But you must have the morals of a drug dealer. (And the bank wire transfer number to the Democratic National Committee.)

The editors of The New York Times have been engaging in a spirited debate with their readers over whether doctors are wildly overpaid or just hugely overpaid. The results of this debate are available on TimeSelect, for just $49.95.

"Many health care economists," the Times editorialized, say the partisan wrangling over health care masks a bigger problem: "the relatively high salaries paid to American doctors."

Citing the Rand Corp., the Times noted that doctors in the U.S. "earn two to three times as much as they do in other industrialized countries." American doctors earn about $200,000 to $300,000 a year, while European doctors make $60,000 to $120,000. Why, that's barely enough for Muslim doctors in Britain to buy plastic explosives to blow up airplanes!

How much does Pinch Sulzberger make for driving The New York Times stock to an all-time low? Probably a lot more than your podiatrist.

In college, my roommate was in the chemistry lab Friday and Saturday nights while I was dancing on tables at the Chapter House. A few years later, she was working 20-hour days as a resident at Mount Sinai doing liver transplants while I was frequenting popular Upper East Side drinking establishments. She was going to Johns Hopkins for yet more medical training while I was skiing and following the Grateful Dead. Now she vacations in places like Rwanda and Darfur with Doctors Without Borders while I'm going to Paris.

(Has anyone else noticed the nonexistence of a charitable organization known as "Lawyers Without Borders"?)

She makes $380 for an emergency appendectomy, or one-ten-thousandth of what John Edwards made suing doctors like her, and one-fourth of what John Edwards' hairdresser makes for a single shag cut.

Edwards made $30 million bringing nonsense lawsuits based on junk science against doctors. To defend themselves from parasites like Edwards, doctors now pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical malpractice insurance every year.

But as the Times would note, doctors in Burkina Faso only get $25 and one goat per year.

As long as we're studying the health care systems of various socialist countries, are we allowed to notice that doctors in these other countries aren't constantly being sued by bottom-feeding trial lawyers stealing one-third of the income of people performing useful work like saving lives?

But the Democrats (and Fred Thompson) refuse to enact tort reform legislation to rein in these charlatans. After teachers and welfare recipients, the Democrats' most prized constituency is trial lawyers. The ultimate Democrat constituent would be a public schoolteacher on welfare who needed an abortion and was suing her doctor.

Doctors graduate at the top of their classes at college and then spend nearly a decade in grueling work at medical schools. Most doctors don't make a dime until they're in their early 30s, just in time to start paying off their six-figure student loans by saving people's lives. They have 10 times the IQ of trial lawyers and 1,000 times the character.

Yeah, let's go after those guys. On to nuns next!

But Times' readers responded to the editorial about doctors being overpaid with a slew of indignant letters -- not at the Times for making such an idiotic argument, but at doctors who earn an average of $200,000 per year. Letter writers praised the free medical care in places like Spain. ("Nightmare" in the Ann Coulter dictionary is defined as "having a medical emergency in Spain.")

One letter-writer proposed helping doctors by having the government take over another aspect of the economy -- the cost of medical education:

"If we are to restructure the system by which we pay doctors to match Europe, which seems prudent as well as inevitable, we must also finance education as Europeans do, by using state dollars to finance the full or majority cost of higher education, including professional school."

And then to reduce the cost of medical school, the government could finance "the full or majority cost" of construction costs of medical schools, and "the full or majority cost" of the trucks that bring the cement to the construction site and the "the full or majority cost" of coffee that the truck drivers drink while hauling the cement and ... it makes my head hurt.

I may have to see a doctor about this. I should probably get on the waiting list now in case Hillary gets elected.

That's how liberals think: To fix an industry bedeviled by government controls, we'll spread the coercion to yet more industries!

The only sane letter on the matter, I'm happy to report, came from the charming town of New Canaan, Conn., which means that I am not the only normal person who still reads the Times. Ray Groves wrote:

"Last week, I had the annual checkup for my 2000 Taurus. I paid $95 per hour for much needed body work. Next month, when I have my own annual physical, I expect and hope to pay a much higher rate to my primary care internist, who has spent a significant portion of his life training to achieve his position of responsibility."

There is nothing more to say.

Torog Reviewed by Torog on 09-25-2007. Is There a Trial Lawyer in the House ? IS THERE A TRIAL LAWYER IN THE HOUSE? by Ann Coulter September 19, 2007 The only "crisis" in health care in this country is that doctors are paid too little. (Also they've come up with nothing to help that poor Dennis Kucinich.) But the Democratic Party treats doctors like they're Klan members. They wail about how much doctors are paid and celebrate the trial lawyers who do absolutely nothing to make society better, but swoop in and steal from the most valuable members of society. Rating: 5

[Zimzum]

Ann Coulter.. sad. Why not address the reason WHY doctors get sued? If my doctor removes the wrong testicle, damn right I'm suing. No "junk science" in what shouldn't have happened to begin with. A truly good doctor should make no mistakes, a lazy one is a liability and should be treated as such.

"She makes $380 for an emergency appendectomy, or one-ten-thousandth of what John Edwards made suing doctors like her, and one-fourth of what John Edwards' hairdresser makes for a single shag cut. "

No one told her to be a doctor for such low pay. Come to my work at Mass General and Ill show you doctors riding around in $500,000+ Mercedes.

[growinforthefuture]

to hell with doctors (they get paid plenty..) Scientists... those are the underpaid itellectauls that deserve more credit (and money)

[Psycho4Bud]

A truly good doctor should make no mistakes, a lazy one is a liability and should be treated as such.

I agree about a "lazy" doctor or a bad one but in the end, aren't they also human?

Perfection is something to strive for but it must be nice to know that there is a lawyer just waiting in the sidelines to wipe out all that you've accomplished. What other profession has that benefit?

Have a good one!:s4:

[delusionsofNORMALity]

to hell with doctors (they get paid plenty..) Scientists... those are the underpaid intellectuals that deserve more credit (and money)

last i heard medicine was considered a science. perhaps you are referring to those towering intellects who gather grants year after year for never ending studies into the relationship between weed and psychotic behavior.

[Zimzum]

What if a doctor botched a surgery due to intoxication? Go in for your left leg to be amputated and wake up to find they did the wrong side. Good people error, yes. But not usually over something that could have been easily avoidable. What I think should be the real issue is just how much exactly "pain and suffering" due to error really is worth.

[Psycho4Bud]

What if a doctor botched a surgery due to intoxication? Go in for your left leg to be amputated and wake up to find they did the wrong side.

Intoxication......just like any other job they should be held liable. If you truck and you're drunk the lawsuit could be huge depending.

Amputations....isn't it common hospital policy now to mark the extremity with a NO? I know at the one I worked at this was a common with triple checks.

What I think should be the real issue is just how much exactly "pain and suffering" due to error really is worth.

I also think there should be limits on the lawyers fee! That money was intended for the loss.....not the money grubbin' lawyer.

Have a good one!:s4:

[killerweed420]

Wouldn't believe any opinion by Ann Coulter or her buddy Nancy Grace. What a couple of pigs. Nothing wrong with lawsuits against people that have done you harm. Are attorneys overpaid? Yes, but then so are a lot of professions.

[medicinal]

Wouldn't believe any opinion by Ann Coulter or her buddy Nancy Grace. What a couple of pigs. Nothing wrong with lawsuits against people that have done you harm. Are attorneys overpaid? Yes, but then so are a lot of professions.

I have to agree, posting Ann Cuntler is like posting Hitler, nothing but ranting and ravings against the left. I'll agree the lions share of any lawsuit should go to the person harmed. Lawyers will say they only take 33%, but that is 33% of the net, after all medical costs and court costs and every kind of cost you could imagine. There is a distinct possibility if the case dragged on for years, you might owe money at the end.

[deadfan420]

to hell with doctors (they get paid plenty..) Scientists... those are the underpaid itellectauls that deserve more credit (and money)

Really? Tell that to my cousin who has been out of medical school for a few years now and can barely afford to pay his bills. Actually, most doctors I know are nowhere near being rich - they could earn a crapload more in a sales job. I'm not talking about plastic surgeons who do breast implants and face lifts, I'm talking about the doctors in the clinics, ERs, hospitals who work hard to save lives.

I love doctors (probably cause I seem em so often) and have a lot of respect for the work they do. Yeah, there are some crappy doctors out there, but that's in any profession. No one is perfect.

And yeah, if my left testicle got removed instead of my left pinky, I'd probably sue as well. But I won't hold it against all doctors.