Amen, sister!
Bet you could get tons of doctors to sign on to tort reform.
Posted on 08/21/2009 7:14:29 AM PDT by DogBarkTree
President Obama's health care "reform" plan has met with significant criticism across the country. Many Americans want change and reform in our current health care system. We recognize that while we have the greatest medical care in the world, there are major problems that we must face, especially in terms of reining in costs and allowing care to be affordable for all. However, as we have seen, current plans being pushed by the Democratic leadership represent change that may not be what we had in mind -- change which poses serious ethical concerns over the government having control over our families’ health care decisions. In addition, the current plans greatly increase costs of health care, while doing lip service toward controlling costs.
We need to address a REAL bipartisan reform proposition that will have REAL impacts on costs, and quality of patient care.
As Governor of Alaska, I learned a little bit about being a target for frivolous suits and complaints (Please, do I really need to footnote that?). I went my whole life without needing a lawyer on speed-dial, but all that changes when you become a target for opportunists and people with no scruples. Our nation’s health care providers have been the targets of similar opportunists for years, and they too have found themselves subjected to false, frivolous, and baseless claims. To quote a former president, “I feel your pain.”
So what can we do? First, we cannot have health care reform without tort reform. The two are intertwined. For example, one supposed justification for socialized medicine is the high cost of health care. As Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently noted, “If Mr. Obama is serious about lowering costs, he'll need to reform the economic structures in medicine—especially programs like Medicare.” [1] Two examples of these “economic structures” are high malpractice insurance premiums foisted on physicians (and ultimately passed on to consumers as “high health care costs”) and the billions wasted on defensive medicine.
Dr. Stuart Weinstein, with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, recently explained the problem:
”The medical liability crisis has had many unintended consequences, most notably a decrease in access to care in a growing number of states and an increase in healthcare costs. Access is affected as physicians move their practices to states with lower liability rates and change their practice patterns to reduce or eliminate high-risk services. When one considers that half of all neurosurgeons—as well as one third of all orthopedic surgeons, one third of all emergency physicians, and one third of all trauma surgeons—are sued each year, is it any wonder that 70 percent of emergency departments are at risk because they lack available on-call specialist coverage?” [2]
Dr. Weinstein makes good points, points completely ignored by President Obama. Dr. Weinstein details the costs that our out-of-control tort system are causing the health care industry and notes research that “found that liability reforms could reduce defensive medicine practices, leading to a 5 percent to 9 percent reduction in medical expenditures without any effect on mortality or medical complications.” Dr. Weinstein writes:
“If the Kessler and McClellan estimates were applied to total U.S. healthcare spending in 2005, the defensive medicine costs would total between $100 billion and $178 billion per year. Add to this the cost of defending malpractice cases, paying compensation, and covering additional administrative costs (a total of $29.4 billion). Thus, the average American family pays an additional $1,700 to $2,000 per year in healthcare costs simply to cover the costs of defensive medicine. Excessive litigation and waste in the nation’s current tort system imposes an estimated yearly tort tax of $9,827 for a family of four and increases healthcare spending in the United States by $124 billion. How does this translate to individuals? The average obstetrician-gynecologist (OB-GYN) delivers 100 babies per year. If that OB-GYN must pay a medical liability premium of $200,000 each year (which is the rate in Florida), $2,000 of the delivery cost for each baby goes to pay the cost of the medical liability premium.” [3]
You would think that any effort to reform our health care system would include tort reform, especially if the stated purpose for Obama’s plan to nationalize our health care industry is the current high costs.
So I have new questions for the president: Why no legal reform? Why continue to encourage defensive medicine that wastes billions of dollars and does nothing for the patients? Do you want healthcare reform to benefit trial attorneys or patients?
Many states, including my own state of Alaska, have enacted caps on lawsuit awards against health care providers. Texas enacted caps and found that one county’s medical malpractice claims dropped 41 percent, and another study found a “55 percent decline” after reform measures were passed. [4] That’s one step in health care reform. Limiting lawyer contingency fees, as is done under the Federal Tort Claims Act, is another step. The State of Alaska pioneered the “loser pays” rule in the United States, which deters frivolous civil law suits by making the loser partially pay the winner’s legal bills. Preventing quack doctors from giving “expert” testimony in court against real doctors is another reform. Texas Gov. Rick Perry noted that, after his state enacted tort reform measures, the number of doctors applying to practice medicine in Texas “skyrocketed by 57 percent” and that the tort reforms “brought critical specialties to underserved areas.” These are real reforms that actually improve access to health care. [5]
Dr. Weinstein’s research shows that around $200 billion per year could be saved with legal reform. That’s real savings. That’s money that could be used to build roads, schools, or hospitals. If you want to save health care, let’s listen to our doctors too. There should be no health care reform without legal reform. There can be no true health care reform without legal reform.
- Sarah Palin
I'll believe that when I see it. I'm not holding my breath while I wait for it to happen, though.
much I am sure to your chagrin.
(rolling eyes)
r9,
You are acting as if this is a zero sum game. Palin’s resume and titles are different from Thatcher’s, but she has been in political office for over 15 years. She understands governance at the local and state levels, which is where the majority of it (governance) is supposed to take place anyway.
Time for a little lesson on leadership here.
Informal Leader:
Leader whose power and authority over a group are derived from his/her acceptance by the group rather than from his/her office, position, status, or rank in the formal chain of command in the formal organization. An informal leader has earned a group leadership role by the group's acceptance
By her ability to influence the Republican base and send the 0bamabots crazy, Sarah Palin wields more power, than any other Republican Party”leader” right now, certainly a heck of a lot more power than RNC Chair Michael Steele, who most of the Republican base just wouldn't give the time of the day to.
Precisely! - The 'housewife' that slayed a sitting governor in the Primary election. - Sarah Palin is a threat to everyone that is a threat to this country.
At least someone isn’t afraid to take on ‘the one’!!!
LOL! Thank you.
People are looking to her as a leader and she is responding to the need by addressing the current issues. The libs are listening, not that they like what they hear.
Yea, I would say leadership position.
I likewise am in a leadership position but not on a national level.
Are you implying that someone has to be a Congressman, mayor, governor, president to be in a leadership position?
Anyways, now that I indulged you in your nitpicking session I think it would be a better exercise in intellectual honesty to stick with the gist of what is being said than policing comments to see how clever you can try and be.
I managed to set the record straight, on your laughable disinformation attempt on Lady Thatcher's executive experience before she became leader of the Conservative Patty, which was pretty meager.
You bluster with “but, but she had 20 years experience as an MP”, I took apart with ease. British MP’s are but one MP out of over 600 MP’s, most of them of little consequence, and unknown by the British public, save people who live in their own parilkaimentary districts.
” Palin has nothing close to Thatcher's experience and you know it. “
Plain has had more executive experience than Thatcher ever had when she was elected leader of the Conservative Party.
That is FACT. Get over it.
In reality most Americans are perfectly happy with the system we have now. They like their insurance company, their coverage, their doctors etc. The grass roots uprising we are seeing at Town Hall meetings would not be happening if people wanted government change in a private run system that runs perfectly well.
Maybe I'm nitpicking.
Re: Nationalized single payer legal reform. I was just pulling your leg and it came off in my hand. Are you sure you are a lawyer?
The link at the top takes me to a log-in page for Facebook, of which I am not a member. Let’s see if these links work. Go here and click on “Notes”...
http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin
Or, if the following link works, go directly to the August 21 entry of Sarah Palin’s Notes ...
http://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin#/sarahpalin?v=app_2347471856&viewas=0
OK . . . seems to work in preview :)
Some of these people opposing Palin have a vested interest in maintaining the status-quo. No doubt a President Palin, beholden only to the people, would kill a lot of people's favorite sacred cows.
Amen, sister!
Bet you could get tons of doctors to sign on to tort reform.
true. The other day I was thinking about the federal government and what things in my daily life they provided that I needed, or had a prospect of needing. I came up with transportation infrastructure, national defense, law enforcement, and securities and banking regulation.
That should leave a lot of room for cutting.
Excellent. Logical and crystal clear. Bravo!
Probably go into convulsions. ROFL
I see it the other way around though. Although DeMint has a business background, I don't think people want to choose from another group of Senators and Congressmen again.
Stock attorney response.
My last case today was a 92 y.o. brain CT ordered by the ER for "mental status change". It was the patient's 9th brain CT in the last 12 months (not to mention 2 brain MRI) all ordered for "mental status change", and all showing nothing but a 92 y.o. brain.
These studies are ordered not because the ER thinks they're really going to find something treatable, but to keep some long-lost nephew who hasn't seen gramps in 30 year from coming out of the woodwork and suing the doc for everything he's worth; if by some chance something is missed. All defensive medicine, all the time. And the illegals will receive the same outrageous over-utilization for the exact same reason.
And its not just malpractice litigation. It's also the cost of equipment liability coverage that makes little stents the size of a caterpillar cost thousands of dollars. If one fails, look out. Better get more liability insurance so you can remain in business, and more classes on "Risk Management". For God's sake "Risk Management" (a.k.a. figuring out how not to get sued) is it's own industry costing who knows how many billions, and taking doctor and nurse time away from actually caring for patients.
I am with you. I have been chasing r9 around all afternoon continuing to rebut his anti-Palin postings. I am tired of these mamby pamby weiners posting and postulating about needing 10 years or 15 years of this or that before she runs. Screw that. She believes in the right things and has a track record of getting what she wants done, done.
Obama isn’t even failing because of his “inexperience.” Its because he ran as a centrist fraud and the Drive By Media covered up the part of his past we knew about, and kept the other 95% secret. People who care about america don’t like this stuff. You’re always going to have 30% who are leeches, but this nation’s electoral system is set up very ingeniously. There is always accountability right around the corner, unless fraud or apathy sets in.
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