Medicare – Overlawyered

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 28 Dec 2018 11:01:45 +0000

No, the federal court ruling in Texas isn’t likely to take down the Affordable Care Act / ObamaCare [Ilya Shapiro]
Should doctors exhort their patients to vote? Hell, no [Wesley J. Smith]
“Accutane Litigation Goes Out with a Bang, Not a Whimper” [James Beck, Drug & Device Law] “The Worst Prescription Drug/Medical Device Decisions of 2018” [same; plus the best]
Proposal for price controls on Medicare Part B might amount to drug reimportation lite [Roger Pilon] Canadian reimportation as shiny object [Beck]
The European Medicines Agency has approved the powerful new opioid Dsuvia, and FDA head Gottlieb made the right choice in following suit, Sen. Markey and Public Citizen notwithstanding [Jeffrey Singer, Cato]
“Your doctors didn’t jump out of business; they were pushed. And they were pushed by people way too convinced of their qualifications to redesign the world around them.” [J.D. Tuccille, Reason]

Tags: Canada, medical, Medicare, ObamaCare, opioids, pharmaceuticals

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Mon, 09 Jun 2014 04:05:48 +0000

Alarming: “2,500 Georgia Doctors Lack Malpractice Insurance: Report” [Insurance Journal]
Improper FDA contact with trial lawyers behind closed doors? [DDLaw, Ed Silverman, WSJ CorpInt]
AFGE fights efforts to refer patients at troubled VA hospitals to civilian specialists [Betsy McCaughey, Investors] Civil service rules entrench bad VA managers [Rep. Jeff Miller, Time mag]
Improved understanding of brain damage in newborns could have litigation implications [New York Times “Well”]
Budget measure widens Medicaid program rights to recoup medical outlays by grabbing part of plaintiff tort recoveries [King & Spalding]
“Ronald Reagan and AIDS: Correcting the Record” [Carl Cannon]
Rating the FDA’s various drug review divisions [Manhattan Institute, The Hill, more]

Tags: AIDS, FDA, Georgia, hospitals, medical malpractice insurance, Medicare

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

The Washington Post on Medicare eye drugs

Walter Olson — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 04:24:51 +0000

Last week the Washington Post flayed doctors who participate in the Medicare program, along with the pharmaceutical company Genentech, because they often prescribe the $2,000-a-dose (and fully FDA-approved) eye drug Lucentis in preference to Avastin, a biologically related compound also made by Genentech that seems to work equally well against “wet” age-related macular degeneration and can be obtained off-label from compounders for only $50 an injection (albeit with some additional risks and hassles). Taxpayers have shelled out billions of dollars, the Post complains with some justice, because many docs (currently close to half) choose FDA-approved in preference to off-label treatments.

Great investigation, guys. Now that you’ve accused doctors of being socially irresponsible and greedy for not going off-label to prescribe, could you investigate who exactly has been demonizing off-label prescribing as a dangerous, unregulated practice that the FDA needs to crack down on? What would happen if you found that that it was some of the Post’s own favorite sources and advocacy groups?

Tags: FDA, Medicare, pharmaceuticals

The Washington Post on Medicare eye drugs is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 04:05:27 +0000

Sen.-elect Cory Booker (and Mayor Bloomberg too) on liability reform and fixing health care [NJLRA] How plaintiff’s lawyers get around caps [Alex Stein, Bill of Health] Missouri protects health volunteer workers [John Ross]
Like an Ayn Rand novel: Massachusetts ballot initiative pushes confiscation of private hospital profits [Ira Stoll, NY Sun]
Advice: plan now to lower your 2014 income to get valuable ObamaCare subsidies [San Francisco Chronicle]
Medicare comes off poorly: “Quality Of Care Within Same Hospital Varies By Insurance Type” [Tyler Cowen]
Revisiting a panic over alleged mass drug injury: “Avandia’s posthumous pardon” [David Oliver, earlier here and at Point of Law]
Louisiana lawmakers use malpractice statute to discourage abortion [Alex Stein, Bill of Health]
Georgia committee looks at plan to replace med-mal suits with administered compensation [Georgia Report via TortsProf, Daily Report Online (constitutionality), Insurance Journal]
Uwe Reinhardt on professional licensure and doctors’ monopoly [David Henderson]

Tags: Avandia, Georgia, hospitals, Louisiana, Massachusetts, medical, medical malpractice, Medicare, Missouri, ObamaCare, pharmaceuticals

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

To corral health care costs, look at medical liability

Walter Olson — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:57:21 +0000

That’s former Obama Administration budget director Peter Orszag’s view [Bloomberg]:

Most of the costs in the U.S. health-care system are incurred in a small number of expensive cases. The top 25 percent of Medicare beneficiaries ranked by cost, for example, account for 85 percent of total spending. And the expenses in those cases are driven significantly by the recommendations that doctors make to pursue one treatment path and not another.

In making these choices, doctors are influenced by various things, including medical-school training, traditions among their peers, financial incentives (which are distorted by fee- for-service payments) and, yes, the medical-malpractice system. Improving the criteria for what constitutes appropriate care could significantly change doctors’ behavior and also save money, recent research by Michael Frakes of Cornell Law School suggests.

Tags: medical malpractice, Medicare

To corral health care costs, look at medical liability is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 04:05:21 +0000

“On Average, Physicians Spend Nearly 11 Percent Of Their 40-Year Careers With An Open, Unresolved Malpractice Claim” [Health Affairs via Pauline Chen, NY Times]
SCOTUS lets stand Feds’ “accept Medicare or lose your Social Security” edict [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
Robot surgery: from the Google ads, you might think lawyers are circling [Climateer via Tyler Cowen]
New York mandates more aggressive anti-sepsis measures in hospitals, and White Coat thinks it won’t end well [EP Monthly]
Shortages of generic FDA-regulated sterile injectables begin to take deadly toll [AP/Worcester Telegram, earlier]
Continuing the discussion of electronic medical records from a few days back: as medico-legal documents, EMRs are under pressure to be something other than candid and spontaneous [Kaus] While other patients wait for critical care, ER docs and nurses enter mandatory data fields for whether the infant is a smoker or the flu victim is a fall risk [White Coat]
Obamacare part-time-work fiasco “only starting to become news when it hits university professors” [Coyote, David Henderson, earlier]

Tags: emergency medicine, hospitals, medical malpractice, Medicare, ObamaCare, pharmaceuticals

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 04:08:10 +0000

Submit to individual mandate, or pay a tax to get out: hey, there’s a precedent for that [Akhil Amar via Magliocca]
Stare decisis be damned? Missouri high court overturns own precedent to strike down damage caps [Post-Dispatch, PoL, MissouriNet, American Medical News (AMA)]
Authorities say Florida hospital employee may have wrongfully accessed more than 700,000 patient records; crash victims got lawyer-chiropractor solicitations from someone familiar with nonpublic details of their cases [Jeff Weiner, Orlando Sentinel]
Time to rethink Certificate of Need supply restrictions [Barton Hinkle, Richmond Times-Dispatch]
By its legislative author: “What New Hampshire’s ‘early offer’ law really does” [J. Brandon Giuda, Union Leader, earlier]
Dueling studies on impact of Texas medical liability reform [David Hyman, Charles Silver et al, “Does Tort Reform Affect Physician Supply?“, Stephen Magee, “Contrary Evidence” (PDF) and “Rapid Physician Supply Response“; ACEP; Austin American-Statesman on Hyman/Silver, D Magazine and Longview News-Journal on Magee, Gov. Rick Perry] “Liability insurers are noticing an uptick in large verdicts” [Alicia Gallegos, American Medical News (AMA)]
“Medicare Costs Too Much, So Let’s Make Private Payers Make Up the Difference” [Peter Suderman, Reason; John Walters, Maryland Public Policy Institute]

Tags: Florida, hospitals, medical malpractice, Medicare, Missouri, Texas

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Medical roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:57:05 +0000

View from Massachusetts General Hospital: drug shortages getting “dire” [WBUR, earlier here, here, here, etc.]
Medical liability roundup: Sheriff arrives at Ohio doctor’s home to enforce $9.7 million award blaming lack of Caesarean section for cerebral palsy [TribToday] North Carolina legislature overrides Gov. Beverly Perdue’s veto of liability limits [News & Observer via White Coat] Trial-lawyer-friendly Florida Supreme Court could strike down malpractice award limits in pending case [Orlando Business Journal]
“Antitrust rules handcuff physician-led delivery models” [American Medical News]
Relatedly, who was it who imagined anonymous denunciation of doctors was going to be a good idea? [Jay Hopkinson via Larry Ribstein]
New Medicare paperwork threat to clinical trials? [Beck]
Study: Elected coroners less likely to label deaths as suicide than appointed counterparts, family’s access to insurance benefits may be factor [Kevin B. O’Reilly, American Medical News]
“Gee, why wouldn’t Obama administration want judges and “public interest” lawyers running its new health care law?” [Mickey Kaus on New Republic report]

Tags: antitrust, Florida, insurance, medical, Medicare, North Carolina, obstetrics

Medical roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

October 4 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 05:45:14 +0000

Mass torts specialists vs. vendor: “Prominent Plaintiffs’ Attorneys Ordered to Pay Up After Losing Breach of Contract Trial” [Above the Law]
“You’ll have to get it on the street” — NYC’s thriving black market in pesticides [NYT, more]
Benjamin Barton on his new book, “The Lawyer-Judge Bias” [Truth on the Market, earlier here, etc.]
Medicare will not press “secondary payer” liability clawback claims below $300 [Miller and Zois, PoL, NLJ]
Class action roundup: “Sleeper” Supreme Court case raises question of whether class action certification requires consumer harm [Fisher/Forbes] Important Easterbrook opinion in Aqua Dots case puts curbs on class certification [PoL, Fisher/Forbes, Beck] Frey, Mortenson et al.: “The non-fiction class action” [Trask, OUP blog; earlier here, etc.]
Free speech roundup: Canada proposal could criminalize linking to alleged hate speech [Hosting Industry Watch] More on Canadian denouncers of speechcrime [Ken at Popehat] You don’t say: “$60,000 Ruling Against Truthful Blogger Tests Limits of the First Amendment” [Citizen Media Law] What happens when a defamation plaintiff asks a court for a takedown order? [same] Argentina: subpoenas step up pressure on reporters, editors who report on economy [NYT via Walter Russell Mead]
Should the law punish energy companies whose operations kill birds? Depends on whose osprey is being gored [Perry]

Tags: class actions, free speech, free speech in Canada, hate speech, Medicare, NYC, oil industry, online speech, pesticides

October 4 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

June 8 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:13:39 +0000

Bay City, Mich. business finds itself the target of frequent litigant [Faces of Lawsuit Abuse (auto-plays video) via NJLRA]
An “all-Taco-Bell future”: government nutrition guidelines press restaurants toward “standardization of recipes and methods of preparation” [Suderman, Reason “Hit and Run”]
Class actions: thoughts on “professional objectors” [Ted at CCAF]
Report on business influence on California politics smuggles in trial lawyers as “business” [Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee via CJAC]
Those local homeowners protesting Wal-Mart may be getting support from a supermarket chain [WSJ via Coyote, Dan Mitchell]
“Medicare soon to go after liability settlements” [Korris, LNL]
“Use Your Law Deferment to Work for Liberty!” [Shapiro, Cato] And Cato’s also hiring for some video and new media positions;
U.K.: “Drivers could be over limit after less than a pint under new law” [Daily Mail]

Tags: alcohol, California, Cato Institute, class action settlements, Medicare, Michigan, restaurants, United Kingdom, Wal-Mart

June 8 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system