These “malpractice crisis claims” have been investigated by Non-partisan groups, which have been found to be completely unsubstantiated. A study which was done by the Congressional Budget Office found that medical liability costs represented much less than 2% of all health care costs, and cutting out malpractice suits would have nearly no impact on rising healthcare costs.

The same office found that doctors erroneously claimed medical malpractice cases were causing them to practice “defensive medicine”. The CBO said that it benefitted their patients to practice defensive medicine and because it led to higher income levels for them. The General accounting Office found absolutely no substantiation for the claim that medical malpractice cases caused “defensive medicine” after a similar investigation. The Annenberg Center claimed that the investigation proved insurers were lying about the statistics in order to impugn the malpractice system.

The malpractice ordeal is being called a “smokescreen” now that doctors have been forced by the facts to agree. Physicians have reached a consensus that malpractice is an “unimportant element of what is going on” at a conference in Cambridge.

The US spends roughly $2.5 trillion every year on healthcare, while only $10 billion of it is in the form of payments related to the malpractice system. Out of all the costs, less than .4% of total costs are from malpractice. Defensive medicine as not the fault of lawyers or the legal system, but rather something driven by business needs and a cultural fear by doctors that  they might miss something.

So finally we see the call for malpractice caps and immunities for what it is: a scapegoat for failures by insurers and doctors to keep the real costs of healthcare down. It also reconfirms what we should all know by now. When a doctor or insurer makes claims about a “malpractice” crisis, the hard data backing up those claims must be asked for and produced before any judgments are made.

Trial lawyers like me spend tens of thousands of dollars each year proving that the claims made by insurers and doctors about a malpractice crisis are untrue. We do this because 1) the claims are untrue and 2) because when they are not challenged state medical malpractice laws are gutted leaving no remedy for victims as in Texas and California.

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According to the police, Weinberg may have been planning to enter Switzerland. He’d previously rented an apartment in a nearby town, but suddenly left without paying his rent. In 2006 the “Nose Doctor” was indicted by a US grand jury on 22 counts of fraud. Over 100 patients have sued the doctor, saying he promised modern, pricey procedures but instead had performed quick, outdated ones. He was actually featured on America’s Most Wanted as recently as this past August.

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The lawsuit that Jimenez-Salgado put out in the first place was for negligence in relying on the external pathologist, and that the reconstruction of her breasts was negligently performed. This led to the county later coming forward with the fact that it failed to review her biopsy specimens before deciding on the mastectomy.

After supposedly assaulting a woman on Monday, a man from Bull Run is now facing gun charges.

It was told to police by a 47-year-old Manassas woman that a man she knows, Mario Sagano Ortega, had pulled out a gun and then assaulted her. He then threatened her at the 10100 block of Cannonball Court outside Manassas. This is all according to Prince William police spokesman Jonathon Perok.

The victim suffered minor injuries.

The 40 year old from 10164 Cannonball Court, Ortega, was charged with assault and battery and brandishing, Perok said.

He was held without bond and has a court date of June 16.

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The two men were seen urinating in the parking lot of Maxwell’s when two police officers went by around 12:05 am, Manassas police sgt. Eddie Rivera said.

Officers tried to talk with them after they got into a 2005 Chevrolet Silverado which had tags from Virginia XMT-4534. They sped away and hit a 2004 Chevrolet Sierra in the same parking lot.

The Silverado was found abandoned in Manassas Park only a few minutes later. Rivera didn’t have a description of the men other than they are Hispanic.

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Police were called by a local homeowner after he said two teens he knew tried to get in through one of the sliding glass doors of his home on Tecumseh Court.

Officers said the teens ran away through a backyard where they were found. The fence was damaged as they fled the yard.

Officers found the teens nearby and arrested them.

Attempted burglary charges have been placed on the teens along with destruction of property. One teen was released to a guardian, while the other was held at a juvenile detention center. The court date was not available.

Woodbridge High School, Lake Ridge Middle, and Old Bridge Elementary School were in “secure-the-building” mode while officers searched for the suspects.

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The man was wearing a black mask. He walked into the Pizza Hut on Shopper Square, where he displayed a handgun and made a demand for money, Prince William police spokesman Jonathon Perok said.

An amount of money which has been undisclosed was taken from the location where the man left in a Honda.

Luckily no one was hurt.

The suspect is black with corn-rowed hair and brown eyes, roughly 6 feet tall and between 20-25 years old.

His jacket, pants, socks and shoes were black, Perok said.

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The severe spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy condition that the child has suffered through for the past 3 years, was the result of a long time delay in performing a cesarean section on a baby that was thought to have been dead by the doctor.

The attending physician “performed an ultrasound examination with outdated, insensitive, and poorly maintained equipment provided to him by the hospital, Pottstown Memorial Medical Center. He actually told my client her baby had died, then 81 minutes later, the baby had come back to life.”

Evidence was submitted by Vezina and Weinstock that showed that the ultrasonography equipment that the Pottstown Memorial Medical Center had provided for the bed side exam was “antiquated, lacking the sensitivity of modern ultrasound machines. When questioned by Weinstock, the risk manager from the hospital, it was admitted there was no evidence the equipment had been serviced for more than 10 years, whereas the manual indicates that annual maintenance is necessary,” the lawyer’s release stated.

The story becomes even more crazy –  “Throughout the discovery process, during his deposition and even when first questioned during trial, the obstetrician steadfastly maintained, with ‘100 percent certainty’ that he performed the ultrasound properly, and the reason he did not identify the fetal heart beat is because the baby had died. He insisted the baby then “came back to life” some 81 minutes later,” this was what the lawyers said.

As if that wasn’t wild enough, the hospital may have more to worry about in the future. “Unfortunately, due to what attorneys Weinstock and Vezina contended amounted to hospital administration negligence, Pottstown Memorial Medical Center did not have an ultrasound technician present in the hospital because it was a Sunday. The technician had to come from home in order to verify the obstetrician’s incorrect findings,” the lawyers wrote.

All of this ended on April 13^th in trial where Judge Mark Bernstein and the jury awarded damages in the amount of 78.5 million, which include payments for future medical care, lost earnings, pain and suffering for the baby and the babys mother, the lawyers wrote.

A number of phone calls from people reporting a group of males who were robbing several kids by the Daniel Stuart Square shopping center by the intersection of Rt.1 and Optiz Boulevard, Prince William police spokesman Jonathon Perok said.

Shortly after the reports, Richard Pierre Brown who was with a 14 and two 15 year old demanded watches from a 14 year old Woodbridge boy, Perok said.

An iPod was also stolen, along with headphones from another boy leaving no one hurt, luckily.

Brown, 18, of 15018 Cloverdale Road in Dale City, was charged with robbery and two counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, Perok said.

The others who were under 18 are both from Woodbridge, and have been charged with robbery. They were held at the Juvenile Detention Facility, Perok said.

Police charged Brown in March with being one of four teens who they said assaulted a 17-year-old Woodbridge teen and stole an undisclosed amount of money from him, Perok said at the time.

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It remains unclear whether or not the gunshot was self-inflicted, and the Fairfax County Police said that the Office of the Medical Examiner will make the final determination.

Once the next of kin is notified, the woman’s identity will then be released.

The store was responded to by police around noon on Tuesday for the shooting report. According to the witnesses, EMS performing CPR on the victim as she was taken to the hospital in an ambulance was seen.

The gunshot was fired inside of the store where “the victim was a guest and not a team member” according to Target spokesperson Molly Snyder. The store is currently closed as staff work with the local law enforcement on the investigation.

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