Under the Federal Tort Claims Act and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling over fifty years ago, active-duty military personnel are barred from suing the U.S. government for injuries “incident to service” even if gross negligence was the cause. That prohibition applies to virtually any kind of injury related to military service even if the injury occurred off the job or wasn’t caused by military personnel. This doctrine is known as the Feres Doctrine and has been harshly criticized by judges who have called it unconstitutional; judges are forced to dismiss lawsuits due to the Feres Doctrine. The dependents of military personnel, or retired military, however, can sue the United States government for medical malpractice committed on the dependents; so family members of active duty military personnel do have some protection under the law, as do retired military personnel.

Prohibiting military personnel from pursuing claims and giving doctors immunity from malpractice lawsuits has created an environment that is more conducive to sloppy medical practices, according to the current system’s critics, including George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.

Two Congressional Acts allow United States military dependents to seek damages for injuries sustained due to medical malpractice. Under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), military dependents are eligible to sue the federal government for medical malpractice that occurred at a military facility in the United States. The Military Claims Act (MCA) allows them to sue the government for malpractice that occurred in an American military facility outside the United States.

Recently, veterans’ groups and others are raising concerns about the conditions in Veteran Administration hospitals and whether veterans are receiving substandard care. Official VA inspections at a Seattle Washington VA hospital and other U.S. facilities have revealed unhealthy and dangerous conditions such as inadequate cleaning, vermin infestations and re-used medical devices/objects.

The FTCA is broad and allows lawsuits against the government for medical malpractice claims, but the requirements for filing a suit are complicated. If you are a veteran and you or your family members were injured due to the negligence of a doctor or other medical personnel at a VA hospital, before you can sue, you must make an administrative claim against the VA for the full amount of damages you have suffered. You will never be able to ask for more damages than the amount you put on the initial form unless you can prove the additional damages are based on evidence you couldn’t have known at the time you filed your claim. You usually need an experienced medical malpractice lawyer to help you through this time-consuming and difficult process.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has been rocked by accounts of deplorable medical conditions at facilities such as Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the VA Hospital in Seattle, Washington. Recent disclosures that veterans are not getting adequate care at these facilities has outraged Capitol Hill and shocked the public. In response to this outrage, three high-level Pentagon officials have stepped down.

VA hospital inspections have found, also, that staff members are not adequately supervised and are falsifying reports regarding maintenance of medical equipment. Inspectors at one VA hospital had difficulty locating supervising physicians who were supposed to be present to oversee residents. In Kentucky, supervising physicians were found to have given out their computer passwords to resident physicians so the residents could cosign their own reports with no supervision.

Derelictions such as these are happening in our country’s VA hospitals every day. Until the laws are changed and made easier for the lay person to understand, this abuse on our nation’s veterans will continue, often going unnoticed.

With another flood season on the horizon, what should property owners look for from a home insurance policy to ensure they are covered?

If you’re looking to safeguard your home against the threat of flooding, home insurance cover is vital but you must be careful with the policies you choose. Many providers litter their policies with flood-related exclusions to reflect the increased risk that comes with living in a flood-risk zone.

Those with existing home insurance policies should check its terms and conditions and look for caveats and exclusions. In particular, check the sum insured and that you are sufficiently covering the value of your home and its contents as under-insurance may even invalidate your policy. Check the single item limits on individual contents too, so that you’re not left out of pocket attempting to replace a high value commodity.

Check that your home insurance policy offers new for old coverage on items – this will be needed if you want to replace any damaged goods with brand new versions rather than like-for-like items with similar wear and tear.

If you’re unsure whether you live in a flood risk area use the Environmental Protection Agency’s flood maps and enter your postcode. If you are in a flood-risk zone then premiums are likely to be high so it’s worth shopping around with a comparison website and using specialist insurers to find quotes.

To keep your home insurance premiums manageable, take steps to protect your property. Keep it in a good state of repair with gutters and drainpipes cleared regularly so that you don’t invalidate a claim. Consider investing in sandbags to place around windows, doors and airbricks.

Medical malpractice insurance can become a huge financial burden for medical professionals. The rise of malpractice insurance rates plus the ever increasing amount of malpractice lawsuits has caused lawmakers and medical professionals to collaborate and come up with ideas to reduce the cost of insurance and make the claims process go much quicker.

Here are four ideas that have come about to decrease the cost of malpractice insurance:

1. Focus on patient safety – Find out what is causing the most claims and work together to establish standards to improve in those areas. Medical professionals should also be required to study medical malpractice prevention as part of their licensing.

2. Focus on doctors with a history of malpractice – Doctors who have a history of malpractice are the ones driving up the cost of insurance, so the focus should be on taking away their licenses until they can prove that their worthy of practicing medicine again.

3. Encourage doctors to communicate with patients – If something happens that was unexpected or a mistake was made, doctors should be open and honest with their patients. This will make the claims process and investigation go much quicker.

4. Create courts of law that specialize in medical malpractice suits – There have been bills introduced to Congress that would allow these types of courts to be set up. Litigation will no longer be passed from judge to judge and there would be greater consistency in decision-making.

If lawmakers and medical professionals work together and stay focused on these goals, it will only be a matter of time that medical malpractice suits will decrease and malpractice insurance rates will become more affordable.

Sports car insurance rates can be higher than the monthly car payments. But if you drive a sports automobile or a vintage vehicle you really need to protect your car by getting good auto insurance.

Insurance does fall into the I know I need it, but I hate to deal with it category. Yet, you still need to get good insurance for your sports car because in many states it is the law, but you still need to find a way to save money on your insurance premiums. So here are some tips to helps you answer the question: how to get affordable coverage if you have a sports car.

These tips help you save money on your insurance for your car even if you are still only shopping for insurance because you are thinking of buying a fast car.

Tip number one to help you be sure your are getting a good rate on your car insurance: You must have good credit. Insurance premiums are made much higher with poor credit. If you have good credit it will lower your car insurance premiums.

Tip number two is a Warning. If you are shopping for insurance you need to ask if when they run your rate quote if it will affect your credit. This tip can not be over emphasized because if your credit gets too many inquiries it will negatively impact your credit score and cause your insurance premiums to be higher.

Tip number three. If you want to lower your vehicle insurance rates then lower the miles you drive. Insurance is based on exposure and the less you drive your car then many insurance companies will lower your automobile insurance because of lower exposure.

These 3 tips will help you get good insurance for your sports car. So when you find insurance companies who specialize in sports car polices be sure you are ready to save money on your sports car insurance premiums by applying what you now know.

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Why not a pre-paid credit card? It’s a well tried and tested concept after all and quite straight forward. We’re all used to prepaid phone cards, prepaid gift tokens and prepaid gas and electricity meters. The prepaid credit card simply takes the same logic a further step forward, with the added novelty of it being a “credit card without debt”! For those who have struggled to keep spending on their “plastic” within reasonable bounds, prepayment could represent a heaven-sent opportunity to finally knock their domestic budget into shape.

In fact, it’s probably something of a misnomer to call it a prepaid credit card, since no credit is involved and, therefore, there’s never any interest to pay. Whenever you use it (in exactly the same way you would use any of your other plastic), you’ll only be spending money that you’ve already loaded onto your prepaid card. So, there’s never any danger of getting into any debt on a prepaid card.

You load money onto the card in much the same way as any other prepaid facility – namely, by cash, by bank transfer or by using another credit card. Since your prepaid credit card is also a MasterCard or Visa, you can use it anywhere that MasterCard or Visa is accepted, at home or abroad. Using it abroad, of course, would give you a very handy and rather more convenient alternative to carrying travellers’ cheques – with the added reassurance that it’s not going to let you overspend on your holiday money! Furthermore, if the card is lost or stolen, you can simply contact the issuing company, and they’ll send a replacement.

The prepaid card offers the same protection against fraud as regular credit cards. So if you use it to shop online or over the telephone and the card’s been used fraudulently, you can recover the loss. A card also offers greater safety than cash when it comes to carrying it around, so it could be an appropriate alternative for use by children or the more vulnerable (the jury’s probably still out on this one though, and many issuers still limit the use of prepaid cards to those over the age of 18).

As you can imagine, the issuing companies love the idea of a prepaid card, since your use of them is practically risk-free. There’s no need to check your credit status or history, so prepaid credit cards are issued more or less on demand.

So, is there a catch? Not so much a catch, as the relatively high cost at the moment of using a prepaid credit card. Because they’re a relatively novel idea, competition in the market has probably not yet brought the costs as low as they might become. In the meantime, therefore, you should make your choice of card-provider on at least some of the following considerations:

* Will you be charged for simply opening a prepaid credit card account?

* Is there a monthly service charge, and, if so, what exactly do you get for it?

* Is there a charge each time you want to load credit onto the card?

* Will the places that accept your cash to top-up the card also charge for that service?

* Is there a charge for using the card or withdrawing cash on it, including internet purchases?

* Will you be charged for having the card sent to you by express delivery?

* Is there a charge for closing your account?

* Will you be charged for replacing the card, in the event that it is lost or stolen?

* Do you have to pay a fee each time the card is renewed (i.e. upon each expiry date)?

In today’s society the convenience of credit cards are making them more and more popular, this means that more people are apply for a card to make purchasing both goods and services much easier. This can actually be a difficult task because you generally need to have good credit and a reasonably high and stable monthly income so the bank will be confident with your ability to pay back your debt on time. Unfortunately, there are people that do not meet these requirements and get rejected by the financing companies. For them there is an alternative to a traditional credit card in the form of a prepaid visa. This can be used as practice to owning a more traditional card and will teach you the right way to use credit without any negative effects when you make a mistake.

Maintaining Good Credit Standing

In today’s world of finances it is vital to keep your credit rating as high as possible so lenders will be confident in your ability to own and use a credit card responsibly. It is actually better to begin making good financial decision early in your adulthood so when it comes time for you to own a card you will have the proper understanding of your finances and can make responsible financial decisions. A good way to practice this is by using a prepaid visa; it will allow you to make mistakes when it comes to figuring out your budget without having a negative effect on your credit. That way you will be more confident in your abilities when it comes time for the more traditional lines of credit.

Increasing your Debt History

When it comes to debt in general life will inevitably get in the way which may force you to increase the amount of debt that you owe. Things such as purchasing vehicles, homes, or emergencies that may arise can all lead to a very large amount of debt that can become overwhelming if you let it get out of control. This can also have a negative impact on your creditworthiness which will make it more difficult when you need access to more funds. If you have more debt than you can pay back it will make you life more stressful and it will be difficult to get your finances back on track quickly.

This is why it is important to begin with a good credit score and to maintain it religiously. This is also where they lessons learned from having a prepaid visa card will come in handy, because it will have already taught you what you will need to know when it comes to budgeting your finances. A good credit rating is a must if you want to get a credit card or any other type of loan that you may need. This also means that you will be able to get better rates or even a higher credit limit on your credit card as opposed to someone who has less than perfect credit.

Be a Responsible Credit Owner

It is no secret to have a better credit rating you need to be responsible when it comes to your finances. A prepaid visa credit card will give you the tools you need to learn how to manage your money better, so that when it comes time to get a credit card you will not become overwhelmed. Being responsible when it comes to managing your money will allow your lending institution to see that you are a credible individual and that you will have the money or resources that you will need to pay back your debt on time.

It is no secret that a visa card can give you limitless possibilities or purchasing power, but with that comes a great responsibility to manage your debt wisely. If you do not want to constantly see debt in your future then it will allow you to consider what you are spending more carefully, which will allow you to maintain a good credit score. This will give you far more advantages in the future than one credit card can, but it is a starting place for everyone.