Posted on 11/28/2016 7:04:58 PM PST by usafa92
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump has selected Representative Tom Price, a six-term Republican congressman from Georgia who has led opposition to the Affordable Care Act, to be secretary of health and human services, according to a transition team official.
Mr. Price, an orthopedic surgeon, has been a severe critic of the health law, saying it interferes with the ability of patients and doctors to make medical decisions.
And he says that events have borne out his warnings.
“Premiums have gone up, not down,” Mr. Price said recently. “Many Americans lost the health coverage they were told time and time again by the president that they could keep. Choices are fewer.”
An announcement of Mr. Price’s appointment is expected as soon as Tuesday, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been released.
Some Republicans have attacked the Affordable Care Act without proposing an alternative. Mr. Price, by contrast, has introduced bills offering a detailed, comprehensive replacement plan in every Congress since 2009, when Democrats started work on the legislation.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ten Years of Tort Reform in Texas: A Review
Texas chose to adopt reasonable, common-sense lawsuit reforms. As a result, the malpractice insurance premiums paid by Texas doctors have fallen by more than 60 percent on average. Consequently, most Texas doctors are paying less than half of what they were paying 10 years ago.
In contrast, malpractice premiums in New York have increased by 60 percent. As a result, almost 2,000 physicians have moved their practices from New York to Texas. To stem the loss of New York doctors moving to other jurisdictions, New York enacted legislation requiring the State of New York to subsidize the malpractice insurance costs of doctors, ignoring the problems in the state’s legal system that generated the high premium rates.
Sorry, forgot to add you to my reply #81 above.
Outstanding pick.
Someone who can put us on a much better path with healthcare and healthcare insurance. This guy knows what to do.
Hard to have your Freedom and slave to fund the ‘govt option’.
I don’t recall any denial\illegality re: charity\volunteer work that would bring ‘dying in the streets’.
Malpractice premiums did drop, as one might expect them to. In fact they have gone down in most, if not all, of the states that have enacted tort reform. But what I said is that there is no evidence that tort reform has resulted in a reduction in healthcare insurance premiums or healthcare costs. And the link you provided makes no claims that it has, in Texas or anywhere else.
Price also wants to privatize Medicare, think of 50 state laboratories...
I applaud the efforts of Trump to appoint a reformer. But I have plenty of unanswered questions. Keep in mind that if we don’t fix the issue of the cost of health care in the USA that its a mathematical certainty that we will go over the fiscal cliff and it could happen a lot faster than we can be prepared to handle it.
For starts we see that 37% of the federal spending is on health care and this number is rising 9% per annum. This is not a “free market” system. The root cause of what ails our country’s health care system is Big Government. And its going to take a HHS Secretary with courage to get it fixed.
What is Secretary-Candidate Price saying about the monopolist pricing structures in health care? What does he say about drugs that are 10 times or more expensive here in the USA compared to other developed nations? What about laws banning the arbitrage of those prices which would instantly collapse said price structure?
What about the problem in our system that has expanded “administrators” at 5x the rate of care-givers, all of whom you pay for? What about a so-called “insurance” system that demands you pay continuing deductible amounts after the insured event happens should a calendar boundary be crossed? Isn’t this fraud? What about a refusal to post prices that has become the norm in the health care industry thanks to the monopolistic practices which the swampmeisters have given us? What about the common practice of presenting customers with a document demanding that they accept any bill for anything done, with no cap and no binding estimate? What about how they are charging different prices after the fact based on how you pay rather than what is done? Not only is this improper but it may be quite-arguably criminal.
Isn’t it a felony to give kickbacks like this?
What about how patients being forced you pay to correct errors made by the providers? Or being forced to pay to treat infections and diseases contracted as a result of being in said hospital and inadequate sanitation? Or in paying these things they are still subject to lack-of-transparency, the different prices (including the kickback games), and other flaws in the system?
My guess is that Trump/Price have about 100 days in office to start fixing this issue. If we haven’t solved some of the basic problems (especially transparency on the most common forms of “price gouging”) by then its quite likely that within his 1st term that we will go over the “fiscal cliff”.
What I mean by “fiscal cliff” is that the market no longer believes that the US government will have the ability to pay its obligations and that the creditors will be screwed. They will need to take pennies on the dollar. Or they could face hyperinflation. Or both.
What kind of country, government, society, etc. we have on the other end of a USA “fiscal cliff fall” is anyone’s guess. History indicates that it would be very bad/painful for almost everyone.
But, the article provides evidence that the reform increased access to healthcare by attracting medical doctors to Texas, as well as expanding charitable expenditures by non-profits that no longer had to spend the money on malpractice premiums and lawsuits.
I think that's a winning combination.
Now, hopefully Trump doesnt let Romney anywhere near the sandbox.
No to Romney, and NRA says Petreus is an anti-gun activist. I am now Rohrabacher for SOS until I learn different.
Tort reform has been around for years and states were capping payouts for decades before Obamacare. Plenty of time to determine if it had any impact on healthcare premiums. There is no evidence that it has in any state where tort reform is in place.
I think that's a winning combination.
I have no doubt it has lowered the cost for the doctors to do business. But that has not translated into lower healthcare premiums.
They cost WHO a lot? The thieving statists in government...that's who.
Either in reduced revenue from those who apply the credits against what they owed in taxes before.
SO WHAT!
Either you want reduced taxes, or you don't. Sounds like you don't.
Or, in the case of those who don't pay any income tax, a government subsidy of up to $3000 per person.
That is a subsidy, not a "tax credit". NOTHING should be subsidized.
And the billions in subsidies for high risk pools.
The government has no business subsidizing HRPs. It's in the best interest of the consumers and the carriers to fund them privately.
And will this provide better insurance at lower cost?
Hell yeah!
That remains to be seen.
Well, to see it...all you got to do is look in the rear-view mirror.
LIKE I SAID!
This is what worked so well in the low premium states, before Obamacare.
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