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Old April 27th 08, 05:31 PM posted to rec.aviation.simulators,alt.usenet.legends.lester-mosley
marika
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Posts: 19
Default premiere

in another news article I read that Cohen was going to discontinue the Borat
character

I wonder if they maybe went to arbitration and that was part of the
settlement?

"marika" wrote in message news:...
Some of the Roanokers in the Sasha Baron Cohen Borat movie sued Cohen for
embarrassing them

I wonder how their lawsuit is going


I don't know.... I don't think the drunk dullards had much to sue for....
they act like that 24/7 anyway (with or without a camera filming them),
and
presumably they are not "ashamed" of their own daily personas, so why sue
that the rest of the world gets to see it on screen now? if you are
embarassed of yourself, change yourself... don't blame other people who
catch you just being your regular self on film!



----- Original Message -----
From: "marika"
Newsgroups: alt.recovery.na.hardcore-action,alt.usenet.legends.lester-mosley
Sent: Sunday, March 30, 2008 9:59 PM
Subject: choice son


it's not really a choice then is it?



Arbitration a growing trend in health care
Doctors say it will hold down medical costs, but patients say they fear
giving up the right to sue.

By Stacey Burling

Inquirer Staff Writer
Within the space of two weeks late last year, Michael and Hedy Cohen,
who happen to be experts on medical errors, each encountered what they
saw as a disturbing development in the modern doctor-patient relationship.

They were asked by two groups of suburban doctors to sign away their
right to a jury trial in the interest of reducing malpractice costs.

Legal experts say such attempts to channel potentially unhappy patients
away from the court system and into arbitration are becoming
increasingly common in health care. Agreements to settle future disputes
with binding arbitration, in which an appointed individual or small
panel decides the case instead of a judge or jury, are now pervasive in
contracts involving many other things we buy, including credit cards,
cell phones and cars.

Proponents say arbitration is faster, cheaper and fairer than trials,
but critics say the secretive system can be weighted against consumers
and makes it harder to track complaints or build legal precedents.

Eugene Rosov, who runs two malpractice-insurance companies that advise
doctors to use arbitration agreements, said he thought they ultimately
would reduce the cost of insurance and defensive medicine - tests
ordered primarily to protect against lawsuits. "This agreement is better
for doctors and for patients," said Rosov, whose companies have 35
subscribers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. "The only person it's bad
for is the plaintiffs attorneys."

But Temple University law professor Bill Woodward thinks the growth of a
private judicial system "is a pretty nasty legal development, I think,
and it's just crying out for correction from Congress."

A bill introduced last year by Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wis.) aims to do
that. It would prohibit pre-dispute arbitration clauses involving
employment, consumer, franchise and civil rights disputes.

Michael Cohen was handed an arbitration agreement when he visited his
longtime primary-care doctor in Bucks County. Cohen said he was not the
suing kind, but the thought of being asked to give up his right to sue
"stopped me in my tracks."

He said no, and his doctor saw him anyway.

Then Hedy Cohen, who has had a kidney transplant, was mailed a similar
form by a group of kidney specialists she planned to see for the first
time. The form from Hypertension-Nephrology Associates in Willow Grove
insisted on binding arbitration and said she would have to pay the
doctors' legal fees if she filed a complaint and lost.

Hedy Cohen said no and was told to find another nephrologist.

That was fine with Cohen, a nurse with a master's degree in health-care
administration. "I couldn't have a relationship with this person because
they had already set the tone," she said. "We're adversaries before
we
even know each other."

Jerry Dolchin, the nephrologists' attorney, said the doctors began using
the forms at the height of Pennsylvania's malpractice crisis in 2003,
when doctors, he said, were being "hit pretty hard by overzealous
plaintiffs' lawyers." Since then, he said, "hundreds and hundreds
and
hundreds" of patients have signed the form.

Ruth Schulze, a North Jersey gynecologist, started asking patients to
sign an arbitration agreement last year after she bought malpractice
protection from Obstetricians & Gynecologists Risk Retention Group of
America Inc., one of Rosov's companies. She gave up obstetrics two years
ago after she was told she would have to pay more than $120,000 for
insurance.

Schulze said she won each of the three times she was sued, but left the
trials disenchanted. "It is not really a trial of your peers," she said.
"It's theater."

Her patients have largely embraced the new approach, she said. She will
not do surgery on anyone who refuses to sign the form, which limits pain
and suffering payments.

For her, the arbitration agreement sets the groundwork for a more
trusting doctor-patient relationship. Patients need to understand that
bad things happen in spite of doctors' best efforts. "Medicine is not
guaranteed perfection," she said.

Steven Barrer, a Montgomery County neurosurgeon, says he thinks he was
the first in his area to start using an arbitration agreement around
2003. Barrer wanted to "somehow create malpractice reform for myself
since it wasn't coming from the courts and it wasn't coming from the
legislature."

He got the idea for an arbitration agreement from his cell phone
contract. "I figured if they can do it, why can't I?" he said.

Out of thousands of new patients, only about 10 have refused to sign the
form. He does not ask patients with emergencies.

No one knows how many doctors here use such agreements, but the practice
does not appear widespread. It is common on the West Coast, and legal
experts say it is spreading nationally. Many nursing homes ask residents
to sign arbitration agreements, experts said. Golden Living, a national
chain that operates 40 nursing homes in Pennsylvania, says about half of
its residents agree to arbitration.

Doctors who join Medical Justice, another group trying to reduce
malpractice expenses, do not require patients to agree to arbitration,
but do ask them to sign contracts saying they will not file "frivolous"
lawsuits and will use only board-certified specialists as medical
experts in court.

In a project set to start next month in Montgomery County, the local
medical society, bar association, and Abington Memorial are working
together to solve medical disputes with mediation. While an arbitrator
decides a case, a mediator shuttles between the two sides to help them
reach an agreement. If they fail, the patient can still file a lawsuit.

The Rothman Institute, one of the largest and best-known surgical
practices in the region, is currently mulling whether to ask patients to
sign statements saying they will try arbitration or mediation.

Trial lawyers say mediation raises far fewer ethical concerns than
binding arbitration, but critics of mediation say it often fails,
becoming just another step to a lawsuit.

Legal experts say courts have been mixed on upholding the agreements.
Barrer said two patients had tested his contract. It was upheld in one
case and shot down in the other. Lawyers said requirements hidden in
fine print, particularly arbitration systems that require consumers to
travel long distances, are legally shaky.

John O'Donnell, senior counsel for Temple Health System, said Temple
considered asking patients to sign agreements but feared most would not
read them and worried that those who did would be upset. They also
thought the agreements were likely to be unenforceable. The system
decided instead to work harder to avoid mistakes and do a better job of
dealing with mistakes that still occurred.

John O'Brien, a health-care defense lawyer, said he thought the
agreements should give patients time to think and should clearly say
that patients were giving up their constitutional right to a jury trial.

Critics of arbitration say it tends to benefit companies that frequently
need arbitrators. It makes sense, they argue, that arbitrators would be
more interested in pleasing "repeat users" than a consumer involved in
one dispute.

"There are certainly companies that have their favorite arbitrators . .
. and they use them and use them and use them," said William Callaham, a
Sacramento lawyer who is president of the American Board of Trial
Advocates, a group seeking to protect jury trials. "Let's face it. They
use them because they get the results they want."

Doctors have far fewer disputes than cell phone companies, but Alan
Schwartz, a plaintiffs' lawyer, still thinks malpractice victims do
better in court. The arbitration system rules, he said, work against him.

"I have to play my game in their stadium with their refs."


http://www.philly.com/inquirer/busin...th_car e.html


 




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