The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
A Very Serious Problem In Our State
Dear Editor,
These days it seems that a lot of people want to take advantage of the enormous freedoms in our country. We have the freedom to pretty much make money any honest way we want.
Some people are suckered into playing the lottery at 100 million to one odds to seek to make a quick fortune. Some people like to slam on the brakes in city traffic, get rear ended and then receive a big settlement from insurance companies.
Many doctors have huge student loans to pay off and then must pay outlandish amounts for malpractice insurance. They sometimes lose their homes and other personal property when plaintiffs collect jury awards for malpractice.
There needs to be meaningful malpractice reform before we lose all of our doctors in Illinois.
Doctors need to be protected in some way in order to keep a critical amount from retiring early, moving out of state or going out of business. High risk services like neurosurgery and obstetrics are especially vulnerable. Malpractice insurance rates have risen 100 percent or more in the past year for some Illinois doctors!
This reminds one of the Kerry-Edwards team claiming to be champions of the average persons' causes. When Edwards was winning his multimillion-dollar lawsuits against doctors and hospitals-which ultimately cost insurance companies- to help a few people, (mainly himself) he was actually hurting the average person. They, of course, had to pay higher doctor and hospital bills, as well as insurance premiums. Of course doctors are humans and like in every other profession, there are going to be mistakes, but as President Bush said, "No one was ever healed by a frivolous lawsuit."
Speaking of Vice Presidents, you would have thought that Dick Cheney had committed an axe murder the other day when he unfortunately said the "F" word. Kerry has lived his life based on two four letter "F" words (flip and flop.) It may be time to leave town again!
Weyman George, Macomb