Posted on 08/21/2009 9:40:06 AM PDT by Starman417
Sarah Palin is calling for Tort Reform to be the hallmark of any kind of health care reform:
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.” 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?”
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.”
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 health care reform to benefit trial attorneys or patients?
She goes on to write that in Texas, after enacting caps on lawsuit awards against providers, malpractice claims dropped 41%.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...
Finally.
Now....How do we get lawyers to pass legislation restricting themselves?
Wow, this is very cool!
Vote them out of office!
For some reason everytime she does something I get a little grin.
First, tort reform. Cost to the taxpayers - exactly zero. Benefit to the taxpayers, about 25 cents reduction per dollar of health care.
Next, insurance competition. Pass a law to enable people to buy insurance across state lines. Cost to the taxpayer - exactly zero. Benefit to the taxpayer, insurance companies are no longer state-supported monopolies; competition brings down rates.
My only question is - if there is tort reform is their guaranteed lowering of health care costs?
The buying insurance across state lines. I forgot about that one. Excellent idea.
I’m a little disappointed, what we really need first is ‘governement meddling in insurance’ reform.
Never the less, this is a good start.
This is why they are determined to destroy her....
I LOVE THIS WOMAN.
GO SARAH GO !!!
I love her for this. This is how she governed in Alaska and I admire her courage to do what has sadly become courageous in these times...simply and directly call upon COMMON SENSE!
I agree. It’s time to do tort reform.
It is not guaranteed, but it is certainly worth trying, as it costs nothing to try.
Other things must also happen, such as: Third. Get the government out of the health care business entirely.
Anecdote: My sister is an occupational therapist, specializing in hands. Her job is to get people restored to functionality after, for example, a stroke. She says she has to spend two hours on government paperwork (most of her patients are on Medicare) for every hour she spends with a patient.
As an aside, she says her best patients are farmers; they are highly motivated to get moving again, because their animals need to be take care of.
I don't have stats handy, but states that have introduced tort reform have seen costs drop accordingly.
Very nicely stated and a very sound argument! (The addendum from Texas is well worth visiting Flopping Aces to read the original article, too!)
But what I especially like is how Sarah is now staking out her conservative terrain! This makes, what, three Facebook declarations in as many weeks? If Sarah takes a weekly shot at the libs on Facebook, we can gain some ground!
Sarah is now presenting the alternatives and counter-proposals that her spineless and voiceless GOP “colleagues” should have been doing all along. Third parties never go anywhere, but I’d be happy to see Sarah take over the gutless party once known as the Republicans!
Go Sarah-cuda! (Just watch your six!)
Now this is the right direction to move our country.
Just this one piece alone, could occur first, and then
once that is in place and seeing results, then challenge
something else.
But not this government take-over-rap..
Obama doesn’t want TORT reform, which is exactly what we need. If this was REALLY about health care and he really wanted to help people, he would bring on tort reform, but this isn’t about health care with Obama, this is about FULL CONTROL, this is about America becoming Europe, which is what he has always wanted. I wake up this morning to see another smack down from the Cuda to Obama. No wonder he keeps on wee weeing himself, poor guy, I don’t think there is a cure for that
“Now....How do we get lawyers to pass legislation restricting themselves?”
Obama has vowed to do or die on this. His supporters whine the Palin poisoned the well but offers no solution. Now Palin shows a way forward that nobody can dispute without further exposing the corruption by ambulance chasers.
The huntress knows that timing is everything: stake out the position, flush out the prey, fire the shot, bull’s eye!
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