Comment by cj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cj | Hacker News Reader

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Agreed, to an extent.

If this happening as frequently as the article suggests, and if Arcadia operates over 50 hospitals, you’d think there would be at least 1 law firm dedicated solely to prosecuting this specific hospital.

Skip the class action BS, and run those “mesothelioma” type commercials. Then have a boilerplate structure for a lawsuit that you can repeat successfully, hire your own doctors as expert witnesses to refute the hospital, etc.

If they are imprisoning people illegally, I imagine the settlements would be quite high per patient.

> But since it was just the doctor's word against theirs

When something is widespread and perpetrated by the same people, you have to establish a pattern of behavior to discredit the witness.

The narrative could be pretty straight forward: the doctor was lying to the insurance company, and they’re lying to the jury, too.

Seems they already settled a couple suits, which could potentially be used to discredit the hospital as well.

But again, you really need a specialized firm willing to take them down by taking on a bunch of similar cases to make it worthwhile to do all of the background/evidence/research to make a case.

This is also the type of case that could get heavy PR / public support which the right law firms can leverage in their favor.

…or we embrace better regulation and trust the government to fix this. But the government also has a terrible track record when it comes to caring for the mentally ill.

> If they are imprisoning people illegally, I imagine the settlements would be quite high per patient.

That depends on whether or not anyone cares about the patient.

Many, many psych patients have basically been disowned by their families, they have no friends, and don't have the ability to live on their own in society. Maybe the lawyers would care enough about them, if they could win a suit, but I'd not bet on that.

I'd suspect that a huge number of homeless folks were ones that would have been "lifers" in mental hospitals. The enormous homeless problem in the US is actually relatively new. I remember when it was much, much less of a problem (We have always had them, but nowhere near the scale we have them, now).

We live in a nation, where it is easier for mentally ill people to get weapons, than help[0].

That said, in MD, where I lived for a while, we had The Patuxent Institution[1]. It may still be around. Charming place. It inspired this movie[2].

[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/08/24/nx...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patuxent_Institution

[2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078043/

> Many, many psych patients have basically been disowned by their families, they have no friends, and don't have the ability to live on their own in society. Maybe the lawyers would care enough about them, if they could win a suit, but I'd not bet on that.

What after winning the suit? I mean, if they dont have the ability to live on their own, what happens with them?

The lawyers don't care. Neither does anyone else.

They'll probably get cheated out of whatever winnings they get, and end up back on the street.

The article isn’t 100% clear, but it sounds like these are people with private insurance. So if they’re not directly employed, they are likely married to someone who is. This doesn’t sound like they’re targeting indigents.

You don't think they do the same thing to people on medicaid to get money from the government? Or people who have private insurance, but don't have the resources to pursue legal recourse?

But the premise was "disowned by their families, they have no friends".

I’d rather see tons of homeless on the street, free from government tyranny, rather than live in the one flew over the cuckoo nest hell scape that conservatives want to fling us back into.

Thank god for Ken Kasey and thank god for desinsitutionalization and the anti-psychiatry movement.

Most of those homeless folks are institutionalized in a very real, albeit virtual way. They're being held in chemical restraints and they're being continually monitored by clinicians when they do mandatory check-ins and doctor visits. The clinicians are also alerted, and swoop in, upon word of legal trouble or health crises.

The effects of medications will encourage patients to act out, decompensate, commit acts of self-harm and violence upon others. The strategy is to get them jailed or cause serious bodily harm/death, because... Well let's just say that the incentives are perverse.

Whereas lunatics of old wore visible chains and straitjackets, and were mercifully housed, fed, and clothed, now they are largely on their own, sink or swim; hope some other human family member cares enough to pick up the pieces.

I don't think the choice is between "no government oversight" and "far-right hellscape"

It 100% is if you live in an economic prosperous state. The middle died in America and the wingcucks are in control of the parties.

Of course, you can point to some centrist flyover states, but in anywhere worth living, it’s either extreme blue team or extreme red team policies.

I wonder how much this line of thinking serves to reinforce the very issue it's concerned about.

The mesothelioma commercials only really became prevalent after suits were won and the firms knew they could get money just by adding more people to the class (or really getting them to collect).

Meso class actions went away a long time ago. These days they’re all individual suits, and on rare occasions, MDLs.

Yeah, but they're practically defacto wins as long as the same basic conditions are met.

The individual meso cases? Lol no. At least some of the defendants nearly always settle but they’re not remotely slam dunks for the plaintiffs if they make it to trial.

Compared to any random cases, they are extremely high success rate if the intake criteria is meet.

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