Hot coffee (the movie)

[hornpharmd]

hotcoffeethemovie.com/

Saw this on HBO the other day. Very eye opening and interesting movie.

Thought it was revealing when they said that since Caps have been put in place in civil suits here in Texas that physician premiums and healthcare costs have continued to go up. The argument previous was that physicians could not afford their insurance premiums and were passing these costs on down the line, however since the caps the insurance companies have not passed on the savings they have reaped to the physicians and thus to the public.

Interested to hear thoughts from other posters one this topic or many of the other topics presented in the film including binding arbitration and campaign finance reform.

 

[snow leopard27]

Thought it was eye opening as well.

I must confess that I had never heard the full story being the woman that go burned by the coffee; there was obviously a lot more to it than what most people apprarently heard about.

I hope the woman that worked for halliburton & was reaped by coworkers gets justice. Astounding that any corporation would try to cover that up and just let the perpetrators go. Maybe its not astounding.

 

[hooklahoma]

Hmmmm. A doc critical of tort reform directed
And written by a med malpractice attorney....

Granted, I haven't seen the movie, but I have to ask the two previous posters if they would have taken the following hypothetical movies seriously if they had existed.

A documentary supporting the recent wars and defending the military
Industrial complex. Written, directed and
Funded by haliburton an their employees.

Doc defending the pharm industry
Written, directed And funded by merck

Just curious

 

[Bevo Incognito]

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[bronco]

I did not see the show, but if what you are saying is true, then it kind of brings the entire thing into question. I am not sure why these folks misrepresent things in their "documentaries" because there is probably a lot of truth in them but when they lie about one thing it makes folks question everything else.

TMTL is by far the biggest writer of malpractice insurance in Texas (80% or so of the market I think). All of their financial data is available on their website. I just looked at OB/Gyn premiums as I had to pick something.

The annual premiums peaked in about 2003 at $49K for low risk areas and $93K for high risk areas (Lubbock is a low risk area, Laredo/Brownsville are high risk). There was a price DECREASE every single year since 2003. The latest data show the same risk areas as above at annual premiums today of $33K to $63K.

One can argue a lot of things about tort reform. But you can not argue that it reduced malpractice premiums for docs.

Again, why the movie misrepresents this is anyone's guess, but it makes their whole presentation questionable.

 

[hooklahoma]

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[Mr. Deez]

I haven't seen the movie and don't care to. However, the bottom line is that tort "reform" has been tried in many different forms - making viable and merited medical malpractice claims economically impractical to pursue, restricting employees' rights in workers compensation claims, etc. In each case, the advocates of the "reform" (who are the ones who get sued or the ones who indemnify those who get sued) claimed benefit would pass along to ordinary people.

Med mal reform was sold to the public on the basis that med mal liability insurance is expensive enough to be a major cost driver in the cost of health care. Accordingly, restricting claims was supposed to decrease liability insurance enough to make the cost of healthcare cheaper.

In workers compensation, the same pitch was made. Cutting employees' benefits and making it harder for them to retain counsel was supposed to make workers compensation insurance cheaper for businesses.

They didn't deliver on either promise. I'm sure doctors have seen a cut in their premiums (though not in proportion to the reduction in claims or the payouts on claims). However, nobody's health costs have gone down, as promised.

And workers comp? Total joke. Most large employers don't even carry comp anymore.

 

[bronco]

I am going to make a wild guess and say that Mr. Deez is a plaitiff attorney.

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[Bevo Incognito]

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[Mr. Deez]

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