Editorial: To cut health costs, doctors, hospitals must end unneeded medical procedures

Sacramento Bee ^ | 4/8/12 | Editor

[SierraWasp]

If it weren't for all the greedy litagator allegators trying to turn the professional liability system into a lottery our institutions and physicians wouldn't need to order all these "cover your A$$" tests and procedures!!!

The editorial board of the Sacramento BEE lack any semblence of common sense on this and thousands of other issues over the years, IMHO!!!

[cherry]

tort reform Mr.Editor.....tort reform...and doctors will stop ordering superfluous testing to avoid law suits...

better educate the public too....

[cherry]

tort reform Mr.Editor.....tort reform...and doctors will stop ordering superfluous testing to avoid law suits...

better educate the public too....

[cherry]

all that is true but the MAIN reason health costs are so inflated is because there is a willing sugar daddy called Uncle Sam, and since medicare was made law, the health industry...not so much doctors and nurses and lab techs...but the suppliers and big pharma....has had a constant and unending Christmas spree...

why hold back on xrays and ct scans and dozens of medicines and physical therapies and constant repeated lab tests when rich Uncle is paying...

sure, Sugar daddy is not paying its full share of all those costs, but they were in the beginning...old habits are hard to break...

and now, the rest of us premium paying public is paying off the huge gap in what the govt isn't paying....and now, that includes the illegals as well...

[EQAndyBuzz]

“Tort reform first.”

As with any law that that affects a large group of people.

Illegal Immigration? Build the wall, then we will talk.
Oil & Gas exploration? Kill the EPA regs, then let’s talk.

Etc.

[Sherman Logan]

Drugs are much cheaper in other countries because they take the drugs developed by American firms and duplicate them.

Drugs are like computer chips. Developing the the first pill or chip costs $1B. Thereafter they cost .05 each to produce.

Except chip companies generally don’t have to discard 50 of the chips they are developing before they return any revenue.

When you buy drugs in Mexico or elsewhere in the 3rd world, you may or may not be getting what you think you are getting. Where piracy is common, you also get a lot of counterfeiting.

[mountainlion]

60 minutes did a segment on buying drugs out of country. Many of them were American made and in the same package. I am not arguing against research and development or a profit margin. All business try to stay in the market that way. There have some drug businesses making very high profits that are not justified. We need to clean up a lot of companies and the government.

[EBH]

Can the nation afford to insure all its citizens? If we don't get a handle on rising health care costs the answer to that more important question is an emphatic "no."

Then that tells me the 0bamacare law that was created to solve this crisis is the wrong answer. The answer to this dilemma is not and does not lie in insurance or in figuring out ways for people to pay for it.

This is the first clue to the 'left' that the problem is not with the people trying to pay for it. The problem is somewhere else in the medical system.

To find that answer one must ask what is driving the costs up?

[TASMANIANRED]

I know a semi-doc.

She went almost finished everything except the exam and the last of the residency requirements.

Instead she works with a bunch of lawyers looking for deep pockets.

She has gotten rich by fleecing doctors, health systems , companies and consequently the public.