Suchergebnisse

The crisis under consideration was the 1970 kidnapping of 2 Canadian officials by a militant French Canadian organization, the subsequent action of the Canadian government of placing the country under martial law, & the militant group's reaction which was to assassinate 1 of their captives. To determine effects on public opinion of this crisis, a survey was immediately undertaken before any formal government action was taken, among the English Canadian citizens of London, Ontario. People in the same areas were interviewed again when the situation became a formal crisis. Similar questionnaires were given to a sample of students at the U of Western Ontario, who had also been previously tested (10 months earlier) concerning their attitudes & stereotypes toward French Canadians. 3 more samples of both groups were tested during the following months, with an additional final questionnaire administered to the students 10 months after the crisis. Results show that for both samples support for the government & the measures it used in dealing with the crisis reached its highest levels at the height of the crisis, but dropped back to precrisis levels in the final survey. Ethnic reaction data from the student sample show that 10 months after the crisis, ethnic responses had generally returned to the precrisis levels. There were short-term effects of the crisis, but no permanent change in attitudes toward French Canadians. Thus evidence suggests that a major crisis event may have no lasting effects on public opinion, & that opinions given during a crisis may not reflect the R's' actual opinions or underlying attitudes. 2 Tables H. Dorian.

Beginning around the year 2000, the cost of medical liability insurance for doctors sharply increased, allegedly doubling in some specialties. As a result, medical malpractice litigation has once again occupied center stage in public debate about tort reform.' Large jury verdicts are cited by insurers, physicians, and defense attorneys as unwarranted and corruptive of the medical system because they set the bargaining rate around which plaintiff and defense lawyers negotiate settlements. One of the most commonly proposed remedies is a cap on the amount that can be awarded for general damages, often called "non-economic damages" or "pain and suffering," following trial by jury. Trial lawyers, consumer groups, and some independent scholars oppose these reforms. They say one problem is a high incidence of malpractice and consequent enormous economic losses for injured patients. They also assert that the reason for the increase in cost of malpractice insurance is poor decisions made by liability insurance companies and problems associated with recurrent downturns in the insurance industry business cycle, rather than underwriting experiences. Systematic empirical data is needed about the many facets of this public policy controversy. Obtaining such information is difficult because much of the process of medical malpractice litigation has been beyond scrutiny. Typically, settlements are confidential and thus legislators, the general public, and researchers have been unable to obtain data about crucial questions bearing on the controversy. However, a closed claim database compiled by the Florida Department of Insurance sheds important light on these hidden processes. The data are available to the public and contain important information about many variables bearing on the litigation process, both settlements and jury verdicts. In the first article arising out of our research on the closed claims we developed profiles of the incidence of settlements at various stages of the litigation process, including claims settled ...

Beginning about the year 2000, physicians around the nation experienced an explosive jump in their professional medical liability insurance premiums. The state of Illinois has been identified as one of the "crisis" states by the American Medical Association ("AMA") insofar as cost and availability of liability insurance is concerned. Madison and St. Clair counties, just across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, have garnered particular attention, acquiring the label "judicial hellhole" for medical malpractice claims. The notoriety is so great that President Bush visited Madison County in January 2005 as part of his campaign for a nationwide $250,000 cap on pain and suffering for medical malpractice jury verdicts. The claims are not limited to these two counties, however. In the greater Chicago area, in particular Cook and DuPage counties, similar claims have been made about excessive jury verdicts and their effect on professional liability insurance. Accompanying the claims of runaway juries are reports of an exodus of doctors from Illinois to escape the "abusive litigation climate." While these reports have been applied to Illinois as a whole without specific statistics about the size or nature of the exodus, various numbers have been obtained from Madison and St. Clair counties. In November 2003, an article in the Belleville News Democrat reported that fifty-nine doctors had left one hospital. In April 2004, another article stated that "[a]t least 60 doctors in the past two years have left or announced plans to leave Madison and St. Clair counties."' In 2004, the Springfield Journal-Register, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Wall Street Journal variously reported that the two counties had lost a total of 160 or 161 doctors.' In March 2005, the News Democrat upped its earlier figure to 136, based upon a study by two business professors from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, who estimated their figures from surveys of area hospitals and counts of doctors' offices in the area. As late as June 9, ...