cadenas
Posts: 517
Joined: 11/27/2004
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quote:
ORIGINAL: eyesopened
No, you are right, tort reform won't make a huge difference but .5 to 1.5 is something and it is something that will shut up the docs and hospitals who whine about it. As I understand tort reform it would still allow punative damages for criminally negligence as it should.
Tort reform will be coming for the simple reason that it is politically expedient - it's a bone that the Democrats have already thrown the Republicans (the Republicans still keep talking about it as if it wasn't part of the bill, but it has actually been added months ago).
For that matter, we have implemented tort reform before, primarily on the state level, and it shows that tort reform isn't working. States with tort reform do not have lower costs than states without tort reform.
At the same time, tort reform is actually a very bad idea and increases cost. For one, it encourages sloppy work by physicians. After all, you have to get hurt before you can sue! Judges have become very effective of rejecting frivolous lawsuits before they ever come to trial; the number of medical lawsuits where the patient wasn't legitimately hurt is now minimal.
For another, it leaves patients on the hook for fixing doctor's mistakes. Doctor left a pair of scissors in your belly after an appendectomy? If you can't sue the doctor, you have to come up yourself with another couple thousand dollars to pay for the surgery to fix it.
And tort reform really doesn't make one iota of difference. We are talking about 10% or more PER YEAR of increase in health care cost. 0.5% or 1.5% just plain does not make a difference.
Finally, it wouldn't change the cost of malpractice insurance premiums. That is because the cause of the premium increase has nothing to do with lawsuits (that cost hasn't changed much since at least the 1980s). Rather, the reason is the same AIG collapsed: investment losses. The business model of insurance companies is actually quite interesting, and not what you'd expect.
What would you do if you had a million dollars, but only for ten years, and then have to repay it? You would invest it, double or triple the money, and at the end of ten years, you'd keep whatever was left. That's exactly how insurance companies make money. The initial seed money comes from your premiums. After a number of years, they have to pay out claims. But in the meantime, they can do with the money what they want.
It gets better: insurance companies can afford to make very risky investments that sometimes pay huge rewards. If they win, the insurance company makes a profit. If the investment goes wrong, they raise the premiums to recoup the loss. It's a no-lose business model! Well, except for AIG - the investment losses got so big and they couldn't raise their premiums fast enough.
And that's exactly what happened to the malpractice insurance: after the dotcom crash, insurance companies had to recoup the investment losses. So the premium went up.
quote:
ORIGINAL: eyesopened
I keep saying it, but no one wants to do it. The biggest way to decrease heathcare costs is to be individually responsible for ones own health and not sit around and wait until one has a chronic or acute condition. How many people absolutely refuse to go to a doctor until they whisked away in an ambulance? Unfortunately, a lot of people.
Have you ever thought about why? Part of it is that too many people can't afford insurance and can't afford a doctor's visit.
Part of it is that if the doctor does find something, you are then stuck with a preexisting condition that will make you uninsurable - and unemployable - in the future.
quote:
ORIGINAL: eyesopened
Even people who have insurance don't want to do the regular maintenance on their bodies that they would never dream to neglect for their cars. Wellness costs less than illness. We want the option to sue if the doctor or hospital is negligent, but we won't even admit to our own negligence.
How many people get their blood work done every year? It could show a trend toward diabetes that could be controlled by simple lifestyle changes. I'm just sayin' we wouldn't neglect to get an oil change for the car and we just can't find the time or money to get regular health screenings.
The catch is that the same trend towards diabetes would then also show up in the doctor's records as a preexisting condition. Right now, I can't afford health insurance - and if health care reform doesn't pass, I need to keep my medical record clean of preexisting conditions in case I later can afford it again. Perverse as it is, I'd rather not know about such a "trend towards diabetes".
What is worse is that such a preexisting condition also makes you unemployable. I've already lost one job because my girlfriend had a preexisting condition and the employer's insurance company must have told them that their premiums will go up thousands of dollars. Sure, it's illegal - but it's impossible to prove. But it doesn't seem like a coincidence that I was fired the exact day the health insurance for her would have kicked in.
quote:
ORIGINAL: eyesopened
But our current system is broken. I think we need to explore all options to fix it and so I advocate some kind of tort reform even if it saves just a little. If I put just 1.5% of my pay in a savings account, at the end of the year I'd have enough for a nice little weekend getaway. Not a lavish vacation, but something nice. When we are talking billions, 1.5% savings would also be nice.
No. If you put away 1.5% per year while the costs rise 10% per year, you won't have enough for a weekend getaway. You won't have a dime. You still lose money at a rate of 8.5%.
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RE: The BEST reason yet to pass Healthcare Reform - 
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