Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

[unofan]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Do you have any idea how expensive malpractice insurance is?

Somewhat (as I'm typing this I'm working on a medmal case, as a matter of fact). Frivilous claims aren't the leading cause of higher insurance rates. It's the fact that people who previously would've died on the table are now surviving. It is more expensive by several orders of magnitude to pay off living victims of malpractice than it is to pay off an estate for a dead one.

Medicine has become somewhat of a victim of its own success. More people are living, which is driving up the (financial) cost of mistakes.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Did someone say lawsuit?

Rep. Dennis Kucinich has sued a U.S. House of Representatives cafeteria for selling him a sandwich wrap that caused dental damage when he bit into a pitted olive, according to a Jan. 3 lawsuit filed in Superior Court for the District of Columbia.

The Cleveland Democratic congressman's lawsuit seeks $150,000 in damages from companies that operate the Longworth House Office Building's cafeteria.

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Somewhat (as I'm typing this I'm working on a medmal case, as a matter of fact). Frivilous claims aren't the leading cause of higher insurance rates. It's the fact that people who previously would've died on the table are now surviving. It is more expensive by several orders of magnitude to pay off living victims of malpractice than it is to pay off an estate for a dead one.

Medicine has become somewhat of a victim of its own success. More people are living, which is driving up the (financial) cost of mistakes.

I don't have insurance experience so I don't know how the algorithm works...when the risk of .01% event is possily 100x the cost of the average event, how much do firms need to overcharge each doctor to prepare for the one that makes a huge mistake? It isn't like speeding tickets, sports cars and age influence each of our car rates...I'm assuming a heart surgeon pays more than a doc that replaces knees but don't they have to charge everybody a ton for the one person that makes the mistake since they probably don't have 'problem docs' with a lot of tickets paying a ton of insurance for themselves.

And, are the awards appropriate for the event? Just from memory, it seems the jury is pretty free to compensate people with huge awards. Folks might say it is a deterent but I don't think any doctor provides good service only because they don't want to see their insurance co. give out a big sum...just thoughts for the crowd, I have little to go off of.


edit: WWM - there you go: $150k for what? What could a new bridge cost? But, it is other people's money again...they can afford it.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Somewhat (as I'm typing this I'm working on a medmal case, as a matter of fact). Frivilous claims aren't the leading cause of higher insurance rates. It's the fact that people who previously would've died on the table are now surviving. It is more expensive by several orders of magnitude to pay off living victims of malpractice than it is to pay off an estate for a dead one.

Medicine has become somewhat of a victim of its own success. More people are living, which is driving up the (financial) cost of mistakes.

Insurance rates have also gone up because the Insurance companies return on investments (where they make the bulk of their cash) has sucked since the financial crisis.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1870599,00.html

Even Popular Mechanics agrees.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/coal-oil-gas/4339171

There are a couple of different things going on with carbon capture. Existing plants are going to be problematic... there still isn't a viable technology for pulling the CO2 out of a waste stream. The current technology (amine contactors) doesn't suck in enough CO2, requires too much recirculating liquid, takes too much energy to regenerate. There's some promising research in ionic liquids, so something will become more workable in the future.

Gassification and oxyfuels are more promising. In particular, oxyfuels produces a perfectly clean combustion gas stream, so there's no capture to be done... just cool it off and voila, captured CO2.

 

[geezer]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Did someone say lawsuit?

Unbelievable. People like this are exactly what is wrong with society, I'd like to punch him in the reconstructed teeth and then kick out the rest.

 

[Major]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Unbelievable. People like this are exactly what is wrong with society, I'd like to punch him in the reconstructed teeth and then kick out the rest.

What do you expect from an entitlement supporting Democrat

 

[Tundra]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Did someone say lawsuit?

I guess he's not running for president again. kinda late filing the lawsuit from an incident in apr 2008. I guess negotiations for a settlement failed.

I think it's a great idea limiting lawsuit damages. And lawyer fees. And maybe they should make the laws more readable for layperson so you wouldn't need to pay $20,000-$50,000 lawyer fees to defend yourself from $30million pant suit.

 

[walrus]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Did someone say lawsuit?

Doesn't he have free dental care? He has no out of pocket costs in this. Must teaching those federal employees a lesson

 

[dxmnkd316]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

I liked how he mentioned clean coal again. Like there's such a thing.

As mentioned in the Congressional thread, this is simply false. More info in said post.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

This could be great

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

This could be great

Can you imagine Angle, Bachmann, and Palin all on the same stage with Romney and maybe Huckabee for a debate? That would be OUTSTANDING. Just watching Romney's head explode as he tries to contort himself enough to placate the radical positions of the others.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Can you imagine Angle, Bachmann, and Palin all on the same stage with Romney and maybe Huckabee for a debate? That would be OUTSTANDING. Just watching Romney's head explode as he tries to contort himself enough to placate the radical positions of the others.

It could be one of those "Saturday Night Live" moments where he turns to the camera and says, "I can't believe I'm losing to these guys."

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Doesn't he have free dental care? He has no out of pocket costs in this. Must teaching those federal employees a lesson

and it is a lawsuit over an olive pit...what is he suing them for? Did they purposely put an olive pit in there just so he'd break his teeth? the mentality that everything has to be a settlement or a lawsuit is ridiculous. An arbitrator should say "what real damages did you suffer?" , "did you actually pay anything out of pocket?", "do you think they really did this on purpose?" , "how much money do you make?"..."shut up, next case".

How about the woman who was texting and fell into the fountain in the mall, suing the mall for not helping her after she fell in and thinking it was funny. Think there will be a law that all mall fountains must have a 6 foot plexiglass wall around them to prevent stupid people from falling in or the malls just take out all the fountains so they don't get sued by 100 copycats? If you stub your toe on your coffee table, sue Ethan Allen. Bang your head on a kitchen cabinet, sue the developer, the bulder and the cabinet manufacturer. Shut your finger in the car door? There should be a federal sticker showing a hand in the door with a big red circle over it, which is part of the settlement on the $100million dollar suit.

Soon somebody will put forth a bill requiring restaurants to put up olive pit signs letting people know that this is 'An Olive Pit Zone' which will cause every restaurant to spend money on the signs and new olive pit insurance, which they will pass on to consumers. This will suffice until somebody chips a tooth on a peach pit.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Can you imagine Angle, Bachmann, and Palin all on the same stage with Romney and maybe Huckabee for a debate? That would be OUTSTANDING. Just watching Romney's head explode as he tries to contort himself enough to placate the radical positions of the others.

Awesome post.

The FCIC just came out with a report that says that Bush and Obama bear a good deal of responsibility for the financial crisis. Not shocking news...except for the fact that the crisis had pretty much already happened by the time Obama came to office.

 

[Priceless]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

The FCIC just came out with a report that says that Bush and Obama bear a good deal of responsibility for the financial crisis. Not shocking news...except for the fact that the crisis had pretty much already happened by the time Obama came to office.

I blame Clinton.

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

Awesome post.

The FCIC just came out with a report that says that Bush and Obama bear a good deal of responsibility for the financial crisis. Not shocking news...except for the fact that the crisis had pretty much already happened by the time Obama came to office.

My personal belief, which I won't try to convince you or anyone else to believe, is that the obvious front-runner in a race to replace a two termer, starts to influence markets and the business climate well before he wins or takes office. This would be the case, regardless of party.

When that same front-runner has 'We are nearing a catastrophic financial crisis" as one of the pillars of his campaign it doesn't do much for an economy already on its way into the toilet.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

The FCIC just came out with a report that says that Bush and Obama bear a good deal of responsibility for the financial crisis. Not shocking news...except for the fact that the crisis had pretty much already happened by the time Obama came to office.

They'll argue that Obama made it worse. Frankly, I don't see how he made it worse. The time to start "saving" for the next disaster was when Bush took office. Unfortunately two wars later all the money that could have been used to save us from this crisis was spent overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq. I think many forget that. Same thing happened at the State level. When Jesse Ventura was the governor he had the opportunity to "save" for the next crisis. Instead he blew the cash with the Democrats and Republicans help.

Stimulus is great. Tax cuts for stimulus are great. But, when those tax cuts don't actually create jobs you have a lose lose for everyone. And for 8 years we've had these tax cuts and they have yet to create a single job. So, blame Obama, blame Bush, blame Clinton. No matter. Our last bit of wealth was in housing and real estate and we used it during the Bush years to artificially stimulate the economy and make things look better than they were. Now someone is going to have to actually do/make something cause the credit card bill is due and America doesn't have enough income to cover.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

and it is a lawsuit over an olive pit...what is he suing them for? Did they purposely put an olive pit in there just so he'd break his teeth? the mentality that everything has to be a settlement or a lawsuit is ridiculous. An arbitrator should say "what real damages did you suffer?" , "did you actually pay anything out of pocket?", "do you think they really did this on purpose?" , "how much money do you make?"..."shut up, next case".

How about the woman who was texting and fell into the fountain in the mall, suing the mall for not helping her after she fell in and thinking it was funny. Think there will be a law that all mall fountains must have a 6 foot plexiglass wall around them to prevent stupid people from falling in or the malls just take out all the fountains so they don't get sued by 100 copycats? If you stub your toe on your coffee table, sue Ethan Allen. Bang your head on a kitchen cabinet, sue the developer, the bulder and the cabinet manufacturer. Shut your finger in the car door? There should be a federal sticker showing a hand in the door with a big red circle over it, which is part of the settlement on the $100million dollar suit.

Soon somebody will put forth a bill requiring restaurants to put up olive pit signs letting people know that this is 'An Olive Pit Zone' which will cause every restaurant to spend money on the signs and new olive pit insurance, which they will pass on to consumers. This will suffice until somebody chips a tooth on a peach pit.

Now just a minute. Think of all the sign- and warning-label printing jobs the Trial Lawyers Association is helping to create. I think they're heroes, helping to stimulate the economy in every way they can.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama Presidential Thread XIX: Starting a new chapter

My personal belief, which I won't try to convince you or anyone else to believe, is that the obvious front-runner in a race to replace a two termer, starts to influence markets and the business climate well before he wins or takes office. This would be the case, regardless of party.

When that same front-runner has 'We are nearing a catastrophic financial crisis" as one of the pillars of his campaign it doesn't do much for an economy already on its way into the toilet.

Valid opinion. But its not like Fortune 500 banks are going to willingly implode because a presidential candidate says the economy is bad.

They'll argue that Obama made it worse. Frankly, I don't see how he made it worse.

IMO the joint Bush/Obama bailout of the financial system was surprisingly effective in hindsight. It stabilized a financial system and frankly an economy that were in the process of crashing...and is ending up costing less and in some cases delivering some nice profits to govt coffers.