For those wondering why medical care in hospitals are so expensive, this is part of the reason: legal liability. Excessive legal liability and lawsuits. Some mistakes are going to be made in hospitals. This is tragic and unfortunate but to some extent inevitable. And if a court of law orders the hospital to pay out a huge amount of money for each of these mistakes, someone is going to be paying for that, and it is ultimately going to raise the prices for everyone else. Parents gave birth to a child, who was born with an abnormally enlarged skull and dwarfism. The baby spent time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (that's for newborn babies who have some medical issue and are struggling to survive, unfortunately many of them don't make it). Doctors discovered the baby had sleep apnea, which causes breathing interruptions during sleep, and can also cause a child to have trouble breathing while strapped into a car seat. Breathing problems can be common for babies born with achondroplasia because they are typically born with larger heads. The babies lack the strength to hold their heads up, causing them to hang forward which can disrupt their airways. As one of the tests, a doctor and hospitals workers put the child into a car seat, attaching electronic sensor monitors to the child, to see if being in a car seat would cause trouble breathing. Apparently the child was left without oxygen for 20 minutes, after the hospital workers were distracted by what they believed to be an equipment malfunction and failed to properly monitor the child's breathing and heartbeat during the study. The lack of oxygen resulted in catastrophic brain injury. After that incident the child spent 12 days on life support before the parents made the decision to end care and let the child die after no signs of improvement were seen. The parents sued and got a $15 million settlement payment from the hospital. The parents got a huge amount of money because some hospital workers made a mistake and their child died. Even though that child died due to medical issues a normal child would not have. The only reason hospitals and businesses pay out gigantic amounts of money in settlements is because they fear it could be even more expensive for them if they don't. Did the parents really deserve money for the death of their child? Did they "deserve" this much money? How much will the costs for other hospital patients go up to pay for this? Do some math. If this even happens to 0.1% of babies in this situation, that's going to add on $15,000 to every family's bill. Just to pay for the risk of legal liability. This is insane, illogical, and stupid. Parents awarded $15m after son with dwarfism killed in Boston hospital sleep study, The Independent, Graig Graziosi, 2023 incident happened in 2022 at Boston Children's Hospital, parents Becky and Ryan Kekula, child's name Jackson.
Well it's not going to be 0.1% - far, far less. A bad outcome is certainly more common than 0.1%, but an egregious mistake, thankfully not. This is a very solid malpractice case and it's sad. The only issue I have with it, making some assumptions, is that pain and suffering damage should be capped relatively low and I would think there would have to be no limit to get to 15 million as this is more about death than permanent disability or major expenses. This is why doctors have to carry malpractice insurance, but it's only a small part of the problems with American healthcare. But certainly one conservative doctors like to complain about.
I think if you add up all the possible mistakes that could be made, it would be more than 0.1%. I think this is an example of people being naive and blindly assuming unrealistic expectations for important societal institutions. But let's, for the sake of argument, assume the mistake rate were 0.03%. That's still $4,500 that would be added onto each hospital bill, a very hefty chunk. This has got me thinking, maybe hospitals do not want to treat certain cases. The liability risks would be too high, the revenue would not be worth it. And if hospitals have a financial disincentive to treat certain cases, it's very possible this might show up in certain ways, such as maybe a shortage of beds in certain departments, so a hospital can set a quota limit on the amount of certain cases they are willing to treat. Then turn away the surplus patients and refer them to another hospital. This is known to happen. Or maybe just raise their prices so high for that particular kind of treatment that they hope those patients will just go somewhere else. Concerns about liability coming down from higher up could shape doctor's decisions about patient treatment in all sorts of ways, in ways that may not be good.
The parents are being paid $15 million because the hospital strapped the baby into an ordinary car seat for babies. Think about that. The baby only died because it had a gigantic mishappen head, a head so big and heavy that it weighed down. And when the baby tilted its head forward, it couldn't breathe. The hospital was trying to save the baby's life. But in the process, two of the workers they employed made a mistake. All that mistake was was just sitting the baby up in a seat and forgetting to properly monitor the baby for 20 minutes. In my opinion, there is NO WAY those parents deserved $15,000,000. Especially since the child was deformed anyway and might not have lived a normal life, or might not even have lived at all, even if the hospital had made no mistake. The hospital already saved the baby's life, that baby would not have survived if the hospital hadn't given it treatment. You say this case is "sad". Oh it's "sad" all right! But not for the reasons you think. You know what? How about NO money. Don't give the parents any money. It's sad and a minor tragedy that child died, but why should the hospital have to pay the parents any money? You think MONEY solves all problems and rights all mistakes and injustices? In my opinion we need to put an END to all these lawsuits that don't involve any real financial equivalent damages. I think in the old days money was only paid out in deaths that involved a family member provider for children. Like if you caused the death of a man, who would take care of his two children? So you had to pay money to the mother to take care of the children until they grew up.
The baby died due to the staff’s incompetence. ‘Forgetting to properly monitor the baby for 20 minutes’ is negligence and incompetence. It is more than a ‘mistake’. When one works in an NICU, one monitors these very sick newborns 100 percent of the time, you don’t ‘forget’ to monitor your patient unless you are an incompetent negligent idiot. You are blaming an infant for dying through no fault of its own - because in your words ‘it had a gigantic ‘mishappen’ (sic) head so big and heavy that it weighed down’. The staff should have therefore have been aware that with a head so heavy, there was a huge risk of the head falling forward and oxygen being cut off. Not to have known this and to have not monitored the child was gross incompetence. They should have done something to support the head. Anybody who works with infants knows the importance of supporting the head and neck. The baby died due to the staff not due to its disabilities. Generally, when anybody dies in a hospital due to incompetence, negligence, malpractice, those who caused the death are liable to be sued. What price to you put on the life of any person? It’s not a ‘minor’ tragedy to the parents of this child. It’s a tragedy that the staff couldn’t monitor a child properly and the end-result was death. Who are you to say how much these parents deserved? Your words in this matter are nothing short of appalling.
"Apparently the child was left without oxygen for 20 minutes, after the hospital workers were distracted by what they believed to be an equipment malfunction and failed to properly monitor the child's breathing and heartbeat during the study." that sounds like a valid reason or a lawsuit, yes the payout was high, but the lawsuit was valid
I feel like when it comes to U.S. healthcare, they've turned the courts into a giant lottery payout system. A few people were suffered mistakes get paid out giant awards--as if they had won the lotto. But someone has to pay for that. The people who ultimately end up paying for that are not the insurance companies, and not really so much the hospitals either (routine costs are just built into their business model), but ultimately the patient, in the form of increased prices--increased prices to cover the liability risk for the hospital and insurance company, and pay for the big insurance premiums. This is ultimately like a tax on sick people. If you want to get a large payout of money if something goes wrong, you're going to have to pay for that in all the cases where something does not go wrong. A lot of people are going to get medical care in other countries because it's a third the cost. But you know what? If something goes terribly wrong, the amount of money you're going to get in those countries is far smaller. Become permanently disabled for life? They're only going to pay you maybe $50,000 in Thailand. And the lottery payout system in the U.S. courts are not perfect. Some people who really should get some money don't wind up being able to get any money, and other people are awarded far far more money than they should possibly conceivably get--it's kind of like a lottery. If we, as a society, are going to play those games, it's going to cost money. And we wonder why medical care costs are so high in the U.S. Medical care costs are especially high in hospitals. And you should know by now from reading this that's partly because they have deep pockets. The deeper the pockets, the more money the court is likely going to award out in a lawsuit. If anyone's ever stayed in a U.S. hospital bed for a month, they know the bill can easily be $40,000.
Think about this. We're raising prices on sick people so that parents can be paid millions of dollars if their baby--who already has severe life-long medical issues--dies. Why do the parents even need money in this situation? It's kind of tragic and unfortunate, and the hospital workers made an error, but why should the hospital have to pay for that? This just doesn't makes sense. It's a result of a flawed mentality going on in society these days.
Bowerbird, something tells me you do not understand the conservative mentality very well. Punishment for people who intentionally do something wrong. Maybe even disciplinary action for those who have a work record involving multiple mistakes. But that is an individual thing, on the individual people who actually committed those mistakes. Not "group responsibility". And no, you don't deserve to be compensated by the rest of society if you suffer something bad or suffer some tragedy or injustice in life.
And in that is the assumption that “people are intentionally doing something wrong” intentionally Says it all really
Tell us why the parents should get any money. And don't just say that a mistake was made and the hospital is responsible. Tell us why, give us a logical reason.
Conservatives in America are always quick to support caps for medical malpractice suits because these people think that that's why healthcare is so expensive in America. But that's not the reason. This is what doctors pay insurance for. No, the reason that hospitals are so expensive is a little thing called the chargemaster and it goes from there. See video:
Did you know that the typical liability insurance costs for doctors - just a single doctor - range from between $30,000 to $150,000 a year? (It of course varies by state and specific field of medical practice) This link estimates that the medical liability system costs the country $55 billion each year. National Costs Of The Medical Liability System, Michelle M. Mello, 2010 That's most likely a drastic underestimate, I would imagine. And keep in mind the insurance will not necessarily cover all of the liability. Obviously when courts order medical providers to pay out more, insurance companies have to spend more money, then insurance companies have to charge higher prices, then medical providers have to charge patients higher prices. Regular patients end up being the ones who have to pay for it.
