How Could Obama Claim To Be Serious About Health Care, If His Program Does Not Address Tort Reform?
July 3rd, 2009Could it be that the malpractice lawyers are lining his pockets?
Many doctors are paying in excess of $100,000 a year for malpractice not because they are bad doctors, but because pain and suffering settlements are outrageously high. Do away with pain and suffering suits and you could probably insure everyone at a reasonable rate.
I think the issue with health insurance is that it is not really insurance or at least it is not used as insurance. What health “insurance” has evolved into is pre-paid medical. Insurance is supposed to be used for the unexpected, the unforeseen incident that we can do little to protect ourselves from. Fire insurance in case our home burns down. We have theft insurance in case we are burglarized. We buy auto insurance in case of an accident. If we treated auto insurance as we treat health insurance it would pay for our gas, oil changes and even routine repairs.
I believe that many of the problems we have today with our health care system can be solved if we went back to a true insurance model. Use our health insurance only for major medical expenses. We should pay for our regular doctor visits, minor illnesses and yes even prescriptions out of our own pockets. But wait you say you cannot afford that! I think that we cannot afford not to. The only way to bring down the cost of health services while maintaining quality is to have the people using the services pay for the services directly. Let’s say that a routine doctor visit cost $350. I have no idea how much it actually costs and I would bet that most you don’t either. Many of us would rightly say that we cannot afford to go to the doctor and we would no longer go. This is where the miracle happens; doctors’ not wanting to go out of business find away to reduce the $350 office visit to $150 or want ever it takes to get patients back in the door. Medical costs are high because they can be.
If the government takes over the payment of medical expenses from insurance companies we have not fixed the problem only masked the symptom. Artificial price controls will only lead to shortages and lower quality. This has been true ever time price controls have been used in every industry I have no reason to believe that this time will be the exception
Congressional Budget Office(December 2008) estimated that imposing limits on torts for medical malpractice cases would lower malpractice premiums nationwide by about 6 percent, on average from the levels likely to occur under current law. (The savings in each state would depend in part on the restrictions already in effect.) Savings of that magnitude would have only a modest impact on total health care expenditures, however reducing total health care spending by less than 0.2 percent.
And that is if the savings is passed on to us.
Malpractice is less than 1% of medical expenses.
California and several states have implemented tort reform and it did not have any impact on medical costs. They did away with pain and suffering suits in California 20 years ago, and their malractice rates and medical costs are just as high as everyone else’s.
Great question. Star for that.
Finally somebody who understand the root issue on this one.
Hell we could start with a real small baby step in the right direction by forcing the losers of these suits to pay the winner’s legal bills by default.
That would help weed out legal speculation. Up the stakes of the game and find out who the real players are.
Tort reform is the key. The Trial lawyers association needs a good kick in the teeth.
Yet another lobbyist?
Tort reform is an Orwellian doublespeak term used by right-wing Republicans with investments in and campaign contributions from health care industry entities (i.e., pharmaceuticals, insurance, and such), and is NOT in the best interests of the American public (as I found out first-hand before my daughter’s wrongful death). This term is meant to SOUND good while actually meaning something not so good for consumers and their families. What is meant by this term is a limitation placed upon recovery amounts should malpractice occur that results in injury or wrongful death of a patient. My daughter was a victim of malpractice after being in two severe accidents that were not her fault, but her recovery amount (limited by “tort reform” pushed through by a Republican-controlled House and Senate) didn’t even cover the cost of her medical bills—didn’t even make a DENT in the costs. I still get bills from Massachusetts for her in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and she has been dead (wrongfully) since 2002. If anything, we need INSURANCE reform…the bloodsucking industry needs to be completely audited and then regulated so that they actually do what they are supposed to do and quit using “fine print” exclusions to deny payment due (like not paying for “wind blown rain” for those in New Orleans who thought they had paid for hurricane coverage for years).
Screw that Doctors are greedy! They make too much money and that’s why healthcare is so expensive!
That’s why we need a salary cap so that guys who go to school for 12 years and work their @sses off day and night in residency can make the same as the DMV office worker who sits at her desk all day eating bonbons.
He’s not serious, because he’s not acknowledging reality.
I predict that he will eventually betray the trial lawyers too, once he doesn’t need them anymore.
He didn’t tell you that his plan is to eventually exempt doctors who ‘accept’ his plan from lawsuits to ‘buy’ their support.
That’s just the way they operate, legal bribery.
if all government officials take the same health care they want the public to take i might think they have a good idea,lol that will never happen
Trial lawyers are the democrats largest contributors.
Your Answer: He’s an evil bastard.