Posted on 09/28/2009 8:06:30 PM PDT by Shellybenoit
Many experts have pointed to tort reform as a key element of any effort to hold down the costs of health care:
The New York Times has reported that as a result of such lawsuits, “doctors have responded by changing the way they deliver babies, often seeing a relatively minor anomaly on a fetal heart monitor as justification for an immediate cesarean.” .. President Barack Obama said to the American Medical Association: ..Now, just hold on to your horses here, guys. (Laughter.) I want to be honest with you. I’m not advocating caps on malpractice awards — (boos from some in audience) — (laughter) — which I personally believe can be unfair to people who’ve been wrongfully harmed.
Fairness may very well be the president’s reason for not backing tort reform, but other elements of the plan seem unfair, such as the prospect of rationing health care, and that hasn’t stopped him. It seems that the president should be desperate to find some savings in his health care plan, as the Congressional Budget Office has said almost every Democratic Party idea increases rather than decreases spending. Tort reform may very well be the ticket to heath care savings that President Obama is looking for:
The accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers says about 10 percent of the cost of medical service is attributable to medical malpractice lawsuits. Roughly 2 percent is caused by direct costs of the lawsuits; an additional 5 percent to 9 percent is due to expenses run up by defensive medicine.
So why the lack of tort reform in ObamaCare? Start with the campaign dollars the president received from the legal industry:
(Excerpt) Read more at yidwithlid.blogspot.com ...
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duh...
Lawyers...scum of the earth... well, most of them.
include all the Lobbyist in that group as well. Lobbyist and Lawyers have destroyed this country.
Ha! Probably more like 35-40 percent.
It’s that 99% who are the scum of the earth that give the other 1% a bad name.
Wow. Off the mark.
This is written as though Ubama is pushing health care reform because he is concerned about health care.
Now I may have missed it but as to the proposed public option, are you able to sue the federal government for malpractice? Anybody know the answer?
Most of them are trial lawyers....
I thought that it was because most politicians are Lawyers.
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