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medpundit |
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Wednesday, February 19, 2003Some will see this case as a reason not to cap punitive damages. But what would be gained by giving her family millions of dollars? The money won’t give them their daughter back. It won’t regain the chance of a cure. On the other hand, a multi-million dollar punitive damage award could deprive many other people of the chance of a cure at that transplant program or that hospital. The money for those kinds of awards has to come from somewhere. Most insurance companies limit the amount of liability they’ll cover. Anything beyond that has to be paid by the hospital or doctor. An excessively large award could force a hospital into bankruptcy, or could result in across the board budget cuts that hurt the quality of care or the accessibilty of programs for other patients. Either way, thousands of others suffer because of one large award. This is the first time in thousands of transplants that the hospital has had this kind of error happen. Would it really be just to ruin it financially as punishment? posted by Sydney on 2/19/2003 08:55:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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