I don't know whether you are serious or not but it WAS a major talking point for her that the price of flu vaccine, and other drugs, should be capped. The final agreement came from those discussions. No "smoking gun" but a definite link from her original concept to the final form.
She probably didn't expect the coffee to be a full 45 degrees above the serving, and what McDonald's testified to be the safe, temperature. Also, she was probably not unreasonable in expecting McDonald's to lower the temperature of the coffee after receiving over 700 documented complaints over a 10-year period. I don't see what's frivlous about it - by its own admission, McDonald's had a practice of serving coffee at an unsafe temperature, well over the industry standard despite complaints from consumers. If that's not reckless negligence, I don't know what is.
Reckless negligence is holding near-boiling water between your legs Serving it in an insulated cup is not
If you read my subsequent post about the British company, you will see that I agree with you on the cause, an unforseeable situation. But if you also read on further, you will see the flaw of limiting your options to only a single supplier, which was the result of capping profits at 1996 levels and not allowing for cost increases to current levels. The tort system has been a catalyst, not the only one, but one that has had numerous spillovers into the market. As to your "talking points" comment, don't lecture me there, I am in that business. I know whereof I speak from a first hand basis. Uncontrolled awards lead to a host of changes in business practices that have no connection to the quality of care. And to continue on that same vein, another very large cost of increased medical service is the cost of providing health care to illegal immigrants. On the West Coast, the number of illegals getting free health care has reached near epidemic proportions in many areas. They get the best of care and pay nothing. You and I get to pay for it through taxes and increased costs to OUR health insurance providers. This aspect of it was not nearly as big a deal 8 years ago but it is has now become geometric. Health care costs are not an easy issue. Tort reform is only one part of it but one that has more spillover than many people recognize. No offense intended to those folks, just a statement of the complexity of the matter.
According to this article: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/9938907.htm?1c The UK government also relies on this Chiron plant as a supplier of flu vaccines. They aren't having the same problem we are, but they have three advantages. 1-A smaller portion of a smaller population gets flu shots. 2-Chiron is provides a smaller share of the UK's total vaccine needs. 3-When Chiron's problems first began to appear, the MHRA made back-up plans, while their US equivalents were willing to accept Chiron's assurances that everything would be OK. So if you're going to assign blame, it seems like should be shared between Chiron and US government health officials.
First, your claim that the US has the best medical services in the world depends on how you define "the best medical services", isn't it? Yes, the US has amazing specialized care and transplant patients do come here for a good reason. But what percentage of the population actually have access to the best? Say what you will about the WHO rankings, the infant mortality rate and life expectancy aren't all that pretty for a system that claims to be the best. And while the talk of "free market" is nice, I can't really see the invisible hand having much of an effect. You have a near-monopoly of a few large firms controlling the market and the practice of artificially extending patents prevents smaller competitors from creating generic alternatives. While the argument that drug companies need to inflate prices to finance R&D seems credible, the truth is, money spent on R&D accounts for about 20% of revenue (of which a good chunk is government funded), Deregulating the pharmaceutical industry is going to be a far cry from "free market".
The biggest reason for the recent increase in health care costs is that there has been an astronomical increase in the cost of technology and health care supplies (stents and stuff like that), to the tune of something like a 40% share of the increase. (Don't ask for a link--my fiancee is a bond analyst who works in the health care sector; she told me about this.) Illegal immigration and litigation are not significant causes of the increase in costs. Litigation accounts for something like 1% of the increase. Uh, no. This is just ridiculous. It would increase my health insurance costs if my insurance company was being billed by the illegal immigrants. Higher taxes? Perhaps. Higher insurance rates? There are many reasons for those, but this isn't one of them. My rates are more likely to go up because of how expensive it is to treat Type II diabetes, the incidence of which is increasing as a result of America's love affair with garbage food. My insurance company covers plenty of fat people. [EDITED to add "technology" to the first paragraph.] Wrong. It has less spillover than people realize. A lot less.
If ignorance is bliss, you must be ecstatic. From the link you didn't click: Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat of her grandson's car when she was severely burned by McDonald's coffee in February 1992. Liebeck ordered coffee that was served in a Styrofoam cup at the drive-through window of a local McDonald's. Critics of civil justice often charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true. After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup. As Liebeck removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled into her lap. The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. Stella Liebeck's Injury and Hospitalization A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body. Liebeck suffered burns on her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting and debridement treatments (the surgical removal of tissue). Stella Liebeck's Initial Claim Liebeck sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonald's refused. McDonald's Attitude During discovery, McDonald's produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third-degree burns substantially similar to Liebeck's. This history documented McDonald's knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard. McDonald's also said during discovery that, based on a consultant's advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees Fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures than at McDonald's. Coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees. Damaging Testimony McDonald's own quality assurance manager testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above and that McDonald's coffee was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager further testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that while burns would occur, McDonald's had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee. Plaintiff's expert, a scholar in thermodynamics as applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids at 180 degrees will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn. McDonald's asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. However, the company's own research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving. McDonald's also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were unaware that they could suffer third-degree burns from the coffee and that a statement on the side of the cup was not a "warning" but a "reminder" since the location of the writing would not warn customers of the hazard.
Indeed. "Tort reform" is code for "corporations shouldn't have to take responsibility for its mistakes or negligence, so we should diminish the powers of judges and juries" or "insurance companies would rather deny coverage and fight in court, and need government's help doing that". It's just an easy sell because we all know lawyers are sleazeballs. When in doubt, blame the lawyers. Except the ones who work for insurance or drug companies.
All of your examples DO point to why the cost has gone up. Everyone of the companies that currently supply medical care and equipment are basing their pricing on "risk management." That means they ALL are adding the potential for litigation to the price of the product. THAT is where is spillover effect comes from. As to the cost of illegal imigrant care; just come out to Southern California and look around. Read the newspapers, including the VERY liberal LA Times. Even they are conceding that paying for care of illegals is driving up the costs. A close friend is an administrator for a group of small medical clinics in So Cal. They are faced with having to close 30% of the their clinics if something doesn't change soon, and the unreimbursed cost of treating illegals is the principal reason. Even larger hospitals are facing the same issue for the same reason. I found it interesting in the last debate that Bob Schieffer, the moderator if you recall, prefaced his question on immigration with the comment he had received more emails on that topic than any other, including Iraq. Now of course the debate was held in Arizona, another state facing the same problem, but it does underscore the entire issue.
That doesn't make sense. The factory is owned by Chiron, and as the product is on sale in the US, surely it would be subject to US liability laws anyway?
Wow, what nonsense. How come the UK, with it's dastardly nationalized healthcare gets its flu vaccine from six sources whereas the US gets it from two? As to best medical services, what's the point when so many people lack access to them? No wonder the US is ranked 37th by the WHO in the efficiency of its healthcare system.
Ummmmm, everyone does this. And, guess what. Companies that have less of a history of negligence have lower risk management costs. Using the example we have from Dan, you can see where many of the ridiculous awards come from. You had a woman who was severely burned by a cup of coffee that was scalding hot. She wanted $20,000 to pay the bills. McD's and their insurance company that probably hired their defense counsel decided "no dice." In many cases like this, the big bad corporation knows that they can normally out-resource any potential individual claimant, so they tell the old lady to go f' herself. Now, who's fault is it that they had to pay out a huge judgment? I am guessing that their insurance company ended up paying at least $200,000 or 10 times the initial claim to the lawyers who defended the case. Then they turn around and raise everybody's liability insurance and point to this case and say, "see what the damn trial lawyers are doing to us." Full on Bush sheep like ITN keep pointing at Edwards as being part of the problem. Have you noticed, that we have not been given one concrete example of where Edwards worked the system to our detriment? Do you suppose that is because the Republicans have not yet reviewed the court files from his big PI cases? Maybe it is because he represented a bunch of people who suffered serious injury caused by a major f' up by a corporation or a doctor.
Even better, after the 700th complaint about the dangerously hot coffee, McDonald's could have said "Hey, you know what, why don't we stop serving coffee at 185 degrees and lower it to a much safer 155? That way we won't have customers suffering third degree burns, but we can still tell consumers that our coffee is 10 degrees hotter than the competition! Wait, we do tell our customers how hot the coffee is, right?" The punitive damage awarded against Mickey D's was as much for institutional stupidity as it was for reckless negligence. Plus, you have to wonder if the "risk management" surcharge (which is real, I'm sure) doesn't involve some creative accounting, like drug companies appear to do with their R&D costs.
What's nonsense? You just made my point. The TOTAL RELATED COSTS of producing in the US has reduced the companies willing to try to make this product to two (I'll accept your number for the purposes of discussion.) This is another example of how uncapped awards have killed the system. Even John Edwards has agreed that there needs to be "caps" on the awards. He AGREED it has been a contributing factor that MUST be controlled. He even says, "John Kerry will move to put caps on the awards." Too bad Edwards was "absent" when the vote to do just that came up 2 years ago. As to WHO, I don't know how they rank it but I do know that the Cato Institute recently completed a study of health insurance and health care in this country. They blew Kerry's talking point of 45 million people without health insurance right out of the water. They documented that the real number is less than 5 million. The explanation is long but you can read it on their website. Bottom line is that the government's reporting system listed you as being out of health insurance for a year even if the actual time is only 1 day when you move from 1 job to another. It ends up with over 8 million people who are actually eligible but have just not applied. In between are several other categories of choice before you get down to those who truly have no coverage. As to the WHO rankings; any organization remotely connected to the UN right now has no credibility with me but the idea that 36 other countries in the world provide greater access to health care than the US is an absolutely absurd contention. Again statistics are just another category of lies.
Edwards had a panel of nurses and doctors review all of his medical liability cases. Don't remember if it was before he ran for Senate or President.
Wow, that's interesting. Flip flop. For whatever reason, that stat, # of people without health insurance, has become one of the very small number of reference points for this debate. It's been that since before Kerry ran for president, let me tell you. The important thing is the trendline, as far as elections go, and that's bad for Bush. As far as policy goes...it's one factor of many. But we're far from debating policy, aren't we? If we were, I'd just point out that we spend the most, and it doesn't pay off in terms of basic measures of health, so our system is less efficient than gvt. centered systems. Gee, sometimes the free market doesn't work, I guess.
The Cato Institutes report is based on HEW stats. Don't know where else you might go to get more meaningful data.
Meanwhile, up on the hill... No Flu Vaccine Shortage at Capitol While many Americans search in vain for flu shots, members and employees of Congress are able to obtain them quickly and at no charge from the Capitol's attending physician, who has urged all 535 lawmakers to get the vaccines even if they are young and healthy. ...
The very entertaining Overlawyered.com has a take on the flu shot crisis today. Overlawyered, as you might expect, has a lot on law suit abuses & tort reform. But they don't feature Edwards or the McDonalds coffee suit prominently.
I can't believe that it took more than 40 posts for someone to point out that Chiron is a US based public company that trades on the NASDAQ. Here's a picture of its worldwide profile of manufacturing and distribution: http://www.chiron.com/business/globalops/index.html I didn't read waht the CATO institute says and don't need to. Chiron manufactured the drug in Liverpool and undoubtedly intended to distribute it through its own US distribution network. It is 100% certain that Chiron would be potentially liable in the USA for any injury caused due to defective products. So let's not cry a river about how US tort laws forced this production to England.