Nickname said:
here masterp you should sign up on this site: http://responsiblehealthreform.org/its a great site because it bashes the current plan while offering no alternatives save for “Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress have offered alternative plans to solve the health care crisis that would not include the creation of an expensive, bureaucratic government-run option. Unfortunately, they do not hold the positions of power on the committees most influential in crafting health reform legislation, and their ideas have garnered less attention.”
Have you seen the Republican proposals? They all include tort reform as the primary means of lowering costs. Right now malpractice insurance and lawsuits are one of the biggest reasons cost is so high. The instant something doesn’t go according to plan the patients sue a doctor and get tens of millions for something that in reality is still likely correctable. Sure a death is unfortunate but how likely is someone to die at a rural family practice? Not very. The reality is most doctors never have a lawsuit filed against them. So why do general practicioners and family doctors have to pay $150-200,000 a year in malpractice insurance, regardless of history?
For example, the family doctor I’ve had my whole life wasn’t able to deliver me because the insurance rate for deliveries was more than he made doing them. That was over 20 years ago. Before he was forced to retire (mild stroke) the insurance rates came up in a discussion and he said nearly 40% of his pay went to malpractice insurance. Since he owned the practice he was able to pay his doctors more to offset their insurance costs but that’s not the point. The point is that despite the fact he’d never had a lawsuit filed against him his cost of simply being a doctor were higher than most of us could imagine. Imagine if engineers or programmers had to pay just 20% of their income to an insurance company to cover damage done if their work went wrong. You’d have a revolt.
If we can make it less costly for doctors to do their work the overall cost of their work will come down. If the cost of their work comes down, the cost of insurance goes down. If the cost of unsurance goes down, this entire debate becomes moot.
Also, there have been several attempts by Republicans to put tort reform amendments in the Democrat bills. All have been voted down on party lines. Why is that? It’s not because it’s not needed, any doctor will tell you that. Mayhaps because the vast majority of congress is comprised of lawyers.