Here are some sad facts. OBGYN's in my county now pay $95,000 per year PER DOCTOR for malpractice insurance - and that is the rate only for doctors who have never been sued!!! The range is between $95,000 and $150,000 per doctor in this field. On average, this protection money, which is the direct result of an extremely litiguous society, has gone up $20,000 to $30,000 per year per doctor for the past five years. HOW CAN THEY STAY IN BUSINESS? Many, many specialists are dropping out of their chosen fields because they simply can't afford it. Consumers are the most affected by this phenomenon! LIBERALS - Get it through your heads that we cannot continue on this course! It's insanity. You're desire to stick it to the man will hurt you in the long run.

Should doctors who make mistakes be punished, sanctioned, fined, etc.? Yes - assuming it's negligence that causes it. It should not a be an opportunity for a financial windfall! We need caps - whether it's $250,000 or not - we need them now. (BTW, the $250K is the cap on punitive damages - not on compensatory damages - like needing constant care. Punitives are the area where juries have been lottery commissions by sticking it to the big bad companies. In the process, THEY ARE KILLING AN INDUSTRY.)

As you can tell, I'm passionate about this one.

You should be passionate about this one. You are exactly right. Doctors are being forced out of business because of the inability to pay for malpractice insurance.

My husband was an ER doctor. He was only covered for only a few million dollars. These lawsuits are typically 12 to 21 million dollars. We can't afford more malpractice insurance. It is not worth the risk for him to continue working in the ER.

Lots of doctors are considering the risk of lawsuits as too big of a liability. They are leaving the profession they trained for because of the litigous reality of our society.

If there were reasonable caps that the malpractice insurance would cover, more doctors could afford to practice medicine. If a doctor made a mistake, the patient or family could still sue. They may have to accept a settlement of a couple million dollars instead of 20 million.

I guess that is the question Americans will eventually have to make. It may not be a viable profession to be a doctor if these malpractice insurance costs continue to rise.

IMO from our shoes.

TLM2