the natural born enemy of physicians everywhere. a huge reason why healthcare in, for example,
Pennsylvania is worse in every manner than in
California. a terrible bastardization of the justice system, they hope for a lottery, shotgunning all parties involved in a particular accident in the hopes that one of these days they'll hit the jackpot. this takes away resources from people who have real claims as well as from hospitals/managed-care companies that are forced to charge more.
A: So what do you do for a living?
B: I'm a general surgeon.
A: No way! Wow, so you must make a lot of money!
B: You'd think so. My gross income is about $250K/yr pretax, but end up throwing 50% of it to malpractice insurance.
A: Wow, so doctors aren't really that greedy?
B: Generally not. In fact, if people didn't subscribe to
ambulance chasers as important sources of justice, that would bring down my malpractice insurance, allowing me to see more patients while lowering my fees.