Dear Friends,
It seems to me, if doctors were held to the same standard as plumbers, electricians, or other tradesmen, our life expectancy would skyrocket. If an electrician comes in to add a light switch and breaks something, he or she fixes it for free. This is because they caused the problem. If a doctor does a medical test and it lands you in the emergency room, it’s all on you. A doctor has no financial risk when working like a plumber does. Indeed the entire medical community is held to a much lower standard than even a janitor. If a janitor breaks something while cleaning, the cleaning company pays to repair or replace it… but not a doctor. They get a windfall if they fail.
If you go into a doctor’s office and get a biopsy, and that test lands you in the emergency room. You or your insurance has to pay the cost. Not the doctor who put you there. In fact, that doctor usually gets a windfall from their mistake. The cost of fixing a mistake is exponentially more profitable than the test. Not that I am saying doctors intentionally make mistakes, but without the real cost of failure that others experience, they have less incentive to be careful. If that shoulder operation goes bad and you’ll never use a bow again, the doctor suffers no consequence. The former bow hunter needs to find another sport to enjoy though. If, however, a logger destroys a fifty thousand dollar road because he failed to maintain water bars… he is on the hook for the whole bill. A logger is held to a high standard.
Some may argue that there are legal consequences, malpractice lawsuits. I would argue they are only available to the elite. A lawyer costs well over two hundred dollars an hour and complex cases like malpractice suits can eat up hundreds of hours. Proving medical issues is very difficult. Attorneys seldom take on such cases on contingency. The cost to benefit is skewed. Trip and fall suits are easier and more profitable. Moreover, the deep pockets are the manufactures not doctor’s malpractice insurance. That’s why silicone gel breast implant manufacturers paid out so much money, for as it turns out… nothing. Even as at the same time, mesh devices were implanted in people that migrated like geese. This shows that malpractice law is unhelpful at best and harmful at worst.
If doctors were held to the same standard as a logger, janitor, or electrician, they would do better work. No one has more power to destroy the life of another than a doctor. Studies estimate that ten percent of patients consistently suffer some harm from their treatments. If that number were lowered even a few percent, an astonishing amount of human suffering would be reduced. Moreover, the cost of treatment would go down, because unnecessary tests would be forgone, resources would be freed up from the lack of repairing mistakes, and this would naturally lead to better quality care for everyone. The problem is that medicine is a business that has tentacles deep in the administrative state, and big pharma owns the media with its huge advertising budget.
I think we all agree we would like to improve the quality and lower the cost of medical services. Instead of a nebulous malpractice system that has punishments disconnected from actions, by decades, perhaps hold doctors to the same standard as janitors? If they break it, they pay to fix it. So if you go into a doctor’s office and get a procedure done and that night you have a stroke from a clump of something they let lose in your bloodstream… they pay. Health insurance would be lowered by this as well. Oh, those who grift from the system will complain, “But medicine would become too expensive if doctors had to pay for their mistakes!” This is spurious because the presumption is that doctors are inept. If that’s the case… all the more reason to put in incentives to force them to be adept.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
