Posted on 08/24/2009 5:55:49 PM PDT by Kaslin
Though common-sense Americans have repeatedly raised the issue of tort reform while discussing health care legislation with members of Congress during town hall meetings this month, too many lawmakers and analysts still stubbornly insist that medical liability lawsuits do not contribute significantly to rising health care costs. These lawmakers and analysts are wrong.
A 2006 Harvard School of Public Health study found that four out of every 10 medical malpractice lawsuits filed in America each year were "without merit." Nonetheless, defending against such lawsuits imposes costs on doctors, hospitals and insurers that invariably are passed on to health care consumers.
Beyond the obvious costs of litigation, more subtle costs related to the practice of "defensive medicine" are contributing to runaway health care inflation.
How much? In a Massachusetts Medical Society survey published last November, 83% of Bay State physicians cited the fear of being sued in their decisions to practice defensive medicine.
According to the 900 doctors anonymously surveyed, on average, 18% to 28% of tests, procedures, referrals and consultations and 13% of hospitalizations were ordered to avoid lawsuits. All of this adds at least $1.4 billion to annual health care costs in Massachusetts alone, and national estimates range as high as $200 billion.
(Excerpt) Read more at ibdeditorials.com ...
The majority of Congress is comprised of lawyers. It should be no surprise they will not pass legislation, such as tort reform, that will hurt the earning power, and ultimately political donations, of other lawyers.
Return specialists MDs to the 1990 Medicare schedule of private service payment, and the financial malpractice premium problem for MDs essentially goes away. Fifty to 75% effective cuts were introduced without warning in Jan. of 1991. Medicare rationing behavior by private practitioners in the most affected specialties began then.
Secondarily, a return to 1990 rates of private reimbursements, the surgical specialist incentive to see Medicare patients takes a great leap forward.
Draconian cuts were made in 1991, the ‘break’ year, and have remained that low for 18 years with relatively small adjustments downward since then. The issue was covered in low circulation professional journals only, and NO public ripple ever appeared.
Combine that schedule change with some modest/moderate reduction in rewards through tort reform, and the problem goes away without playing into the entire populace draconian healthmanagement reform.
The agenda in healthmanagement reform is for other than practical solution...it is for govt./corporate takeover purposes only...the old Mussllini model with heavy Marxist overtones.
the GOP should be hitting this harder...
Ping for later reading...
TY Kaslin. Good source.
You are welcome
I don’t know if it is a good idea to have tort reform right with the death cult is taking over medicine in the country. If a doctor decides to kill you or treat you as less than human because you are handicapped or old or fat, etc. I want the power to sue him.
Charles Krauthammer says the same thing.
Tort reform is the ONLY thing that Congress should be addressing now in the health care area.
TORT REFORM FIRST
TORT REFORM NOW!!
I don’t think it’s the doctors we need to worry about but the healthcare government bureaucrats that will decide what treatment is appropriate for you.
Not all doctors we need to worry about. But, beleive me, there are plenty of Hitler’s army schooled in eugenics who would have no problem enhancing the agenda. We need the ability to sue their asses.
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