At the very least, it should help ease the tension on Social Security ;)

Rein in the lawsuits, eliminate the "third party"systems, allowing negotiation between the government and the drug suppliers and between the patient and the physician. HMOs add nothing to the system, only more overhead.

Simplistic, I will admit.

Tort reform is a good thing, although the Dems will fight it tooth and nail...

Just read an article on tort reform in Medical Economics last night. Interesting results. Basically they did reviews of around 1200 cases, the good news is that the courts got it right a pretty decent amount of the time, the cases without negligence (according to their experts) were dismissed 80% of the time. The cases with harm or negligence were compensated 75% of the time.

The other side of the coin was for all cases the average amount spent on litigation was a little over $50,000. Multiply that by tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of cases nationwide each year and it becomes a decent chunk of change.

Most physicians would agree with going to a system which would have a panel of judges who are experts in medical law to judge the cases. Take the classic adversarial law out of it. It would compensate those who were harmed while removing the carrot of huge, sometimes unreasonable judgements which hopefully would cut down on some of the frivolous lawsuits.

The problem now is that the lawyers know that it is often cheaper for the insurance company to pay out $20-30k for a claim than pay the $50k to fight it. No one seems to think about the physician in the middle who may have done nothing wrong yet will have a settlement against them on his/her record for life.

These numbers also do not take into account the defensive medicine which is practiced in this country through fear (rational or not) of lawsuits. That drives costs up as well.

Your biggest opponents when it comes to tort reform will be folks like FastPaste. Tort law is part of the commercial competition thing. It is, in a sense, the alternative to regulation. It will be the cons that oppose tort reform, not the libs. Not everything evil is liberal, Rick.

No, just most things :p.

And as far as the "cons" opposing tort reform, good luck proving that one. The cons have been the ones to bring up tort reform every time in the last 8 years. It was a part of the last presidential campaign if you remember. Care to guess which side was against tort reform? I'll give you a hint. John Edwards was a career tort lawyer.

Bringing up something as an issue knowing it will never be changed is a political ploy used by both major parties, not just one or the other.

It would be interesting to see how many tort lawyers belong to each party. I have my suspicions....

Duh?! Didn't she try that in the first Clinton's term and it was a big bust.

I guess that Nathen's Dad and I disagree here. The concept of "Nationwide Health Care" I feel is just wrong for so many economic reasons.

1) Anything nationwide means government run. There are many things that governments do well, but efficiently investing money for the maximum return is just not one of them. If the government is going to be running health care, we're just going to end up with a HUGE, bloated buracracy passing paper, and a lot of dis-incentivized entrepreneurs and health care professionals.
- The necessary investments will not be made in new technologies and treatments, because those decisions will need to be made by some "diligent scribner" buried within the government. In the current system those decisions (and the associated risky personal investments) are made at the business level by people whose jobs (and personal wealth) depend on them making the right decision and developing a successful product or technology.
- Decisions which will be made in a government managed system will be made on a political basis, which will most likely mean based on who's made the most contributions to the most influential congressmen or senator. High risk-reward decisions just won't be made, especially if they are disruptive in so much as they will benefit small companies to the detrement of large established companies.

2) Many other countries have nationalized health care, and inevitably (for political reasons) introduce market inefficiencies. Basically, they do the politically expediant thing and underprice it. The result will be something similar to bread prices in the old Soviet Union. Bread only cost $0.05 per loaf, but the lines were long and the shelves were empty. In the US, individual consumers can chose how much health care they want to buy. The result is that overall in the United States, people willingly pay more for their health care then in other countries, but then we've got the best health care.

2A) Admittedly that puts poorer people in the position of not being able to afford health care. I'd be open to some minimum level of care (physicals and dental check-ups, generic drugs and vitamins, other services on a space available or off-hours basis) that's defined at a discounted price, and should function in a similar fashion to those systems in other countries. But there is no way that it should ever be intended as global coverage. Other services should be covered under individually chosen plans as today. To be honest, that sounds pretty much like the "County System" that Nathan's Dad has described in the past that we already have.

I like the fact that we constantly have new health care technologies being developed (for profit) in this country. Many of which my direct family have taken advantage of, and which are not available in other countries which have Nationalized health care.

The cons would like to have tort reform without gubmit regulation replacing it. Unfortunately, it's one or the other. So....they pretend to take shots at tort reform. As I've said, labor leaders would like nothing more than a full and complete repeal of all gubmit regulation of the employer/employee relationship.

Be careful what you wish for.

Supe, there already IS massive government regulation and oversight of the medical field. Trust me, the lawyers aren't adding much to the situation. Tort reform would not remove oversight as you are trying to suggest. If a physician were found negligent, he/she still would be reported to the state board as well as the national practitioner data bank. Every quarter the Texas state board puts out a newsletter, the last page or so has disciplinary actions taken against physicians during the quarter.

The lawyers aren't perfoming a service...well except to their pocketbooks.

jluetjen, I'm not advocating socialized medicine. If that is what the Dems propose it will fail miserably.

Realistically what might happen is a tiered system like I have proposed. Keep the private insurance system as is while expanding the indigent care that is already in place. Make the government system available to all (you could actually just expand the Medicaid program for this) and allow those who have private insurance to continue on their merry way.

Got to chime in. I am busy and am going to have to type extremely fast, so please forgive spelling errors in advance.For background reference, I would consider myself a conservative minded Republican, but with an open mind. I do not like how the party has evolved lately, and while I would defend the premise that President Bush was definitely the best choice out of what was availble last election (read that as "NOT MUCH AVAILABLE"), I think he has failed our party a bit. But not half as much as some of the house and senate weenies of late.

1. Here's a thought for both side of the political aisle - STOP PORK BARREL SPENDING AND OTHER CRAP GOV"T SPENDING!!! Then you could use some of those finds for the national insurance "project".
2. There are enough people here from Canada and across the pond that can speak more intelligently on nationalized (socialized) medicine. My mother-in-law is from Ottawa and all I can say is, that is not what I want.
3. Everytime Gov. Girlyman opens his mouth lately makes me more grateful for the decision to leave the OC 14 years ago. We are sitting here saying one of the reasons we national health care as being that not everyone has it, and now California is giving it away "free" to illegals - yeah, free to the illegals - this is definitely in line for biggest political joke of century!
4. My oldest bro-in-law does many. many surgeries a year. I cannot help but laugh in utter disgust about the lawsuits that regularly come at him for the stupid and insane. I mean really, he is very highly respected. He is no slouch. The funniest one was an obese woman sued after signing a a presurgicalk consult about the fact that becuase of her size, it was nearly impossible to do the surgery without a scar. She signs and has the surgery, adn as noted prior, there is a small scar. She sues. His hospital settles out of court because it is cheaper for them to do that than push the case. SO yeah, we need tort reform.
5. And insurance reform - meaning getting complete medical idiots out of the equation of making medical decisions.
6 Last idea. Brace yourselves... Why don't we actually get up off our butts and start taking care of ourselves? Instead, we have too many health ignorant in this country that carelessly eat, smoke, drink and whatever the heck else they feel like and then when they have health issues, they complain about the cost.

Rant over...

Even lawyers look down on tort lawyers. They are scum.

I am a defense lawyer. I do not sue people for a living and I have worked primarily for insurance companies my entire career. I am here to tell you that tort reform will not affect the cost of health care, auto or property and casualty insurance. It will be a windfall for the insurance companies, nothing else.

In the states that have enacted tort limits on medical malpractice claims or impsed limits on pain and suffering (non-ecnomic losses) the insurance premiums did not go down. But insurer's profits went up. Do a quick Google search. You'll see the studies.

Of course I agree that there is lawsuit and tort abuse. Eliminating it will reduce the cost of insurance. But eliminating the abuses that tort reform would eliminate would save you only cents on the dollar and would not be seen in reduced premiums. Whatever the solution to healthcare reform is, tort reform is not it.

And I in turn, respectfully respond, "horse*****". Without liberals you'd have never had Social Security or minor annoying things like the Civil Rights Movement or Women's Suffrage.

In my opinion, the way of America has been the two party system defining the left and the right "curb" along the road. Hopefully the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government keep us going approximately down the middle of the road. If they do not, the car bounces off the curbs occasionally back into the middle of the road or the mainstream.

Just my opinion that the current Executive and the recent past Legislative let us bump pretty hardcore off that right side curb. We may need Al Reed restoration on those rims! :D

P.S. I think I am a moderate that leans left on social issues and right on fiscal issues...mostly. But call me liberal if you want, I could not care less. In fact, I consider it an honorable and heartfelt position from which to propose the best things that America could be.

While I agree that tort reform is not the only part of the solution, I would strongly disagree with your statement that tort reform does not reduce insurance rates:

How Tort Reform Works

TEXAS: Tort Reform Spurs Economic Growth; Aids Access to Healthcare

In 2003, the Texas state Legislature passed H.B. 4 to further reform the state's civil justice system. The bill addressed issues such as: limits on noneconomic damages; product liability reform; punitive damages; medical liability reform joint and several liability; and class action reform. Voters also approved a constitutional amendment, Proposition 12, in 2003, which eliminates potential court challenges to the law that limited noneconomic damages to $750,000. Since the enactment of H.B. 4 and the subsequent passage of Proposition 12, Texas has made great strides in growing its economy and providing jobs and accessible healthcare to its citizens.

Success in the business community:

* Texas was awarded the 2004 Governor's Cup award for the largest number of job creation announcements (Site Selection Magazine, 3/05).
* Texas also was selected as the state with the best business climate in the nation by Site Selection Magazine (Site Selection Magazine, 3/05).

Successes in the medical community:

* The American Medical Association dropped Texas from its list of states in medical liability crisis (Houston Chronicle, 5/17/05).
* Malpractice claims are down and physician recruitment and retention are up, particularly in high risk specialties (Houston Chronicle, 5/17/05).
* The five largest Texas insurers cut rates, which will save doctors about $50 million, according to the AMA (Houston Chronicle, 5/17/05).
* Malpractice lawsuits in Harris County have dropped to about half of what they were in 2001 and 2002. There were 204 cases filed in 2004, compared with 441 in 2001 and 550 in 2002. There were 1,154 lawsuits filed in 2003, attributed to attorneys trying to file before the new law took effect (Houston Chronicle, 5/17/05).
* Harris County has seen a net gain of 689 physicians, an 8.4 percent increase, according to the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners (Houston Chronicle, 5/17/05).
* Texas Medical Liability Trust, the state's largest liability carrier, reduced its premiums by 17 percent (Houston Chronicle, 5/17/05).
* Fifteen new insurance companies have entered the Texas market (Associated Press, 2/16/05).
* Health Care Indemnity, the state's largest carrier for hospitals, cut rates by 15 percent in 2004 (Associated Press, 2/16/05).
* American Physicians Insurance Exchange and The Doctor's Company also reduced premiums (Associated Press, 2/16/05).
* The American Physicians Insurance Exchange saw a $3.5 million reduction in premiums for Texas physicians in 2005. In addition, beginning May 1, 2005, 2,2000 of the 3,500 physicians insured by the company would see an average drop of 5 percent in their premiums (The Heartland Institute, 5/1/05).

IMO, tort reform won't work.

1. Over 90+% of all cases settle before trial. Companies would rather settle than expend the costs to go to trial. Going to trial is very, very expensive. Most of med mal insurance payouts is in the form of settlement (and the discovery process, etc., etc.), not exorbitant awards. Exorbitant awards are not very common at all. Just being sued is a costly endeavor.

You need to find a way to reduce the cases filed. Only then will you see a difference.

2. We had tort reform in Illinois for something like 3 years. For one, our premiums increased every year, just like always. There was no significant impact on the medical industry, as one would expect. Additionally, with regard to valid claims, it's hard to quantify damage. For example, let's say tort reform was capped at 500,000. If someone loses two arms in one accident due to employer negligence, the max award is 500,000. But if someone loses one arm in one accident due to employer negligence, then the other arm in another accident due to employer negligence, the max award is 1,000,000, but the loss is the same. This was struck down in the Illinois Supreme Court.

Tort reform isn't the answer, reducing the cases that are filed is.....

The new American lottery, with better odds, right? God I hate thieves. I view them as thieves...wanting something for nothing. No friggin ethics or standards whatsoever. I'm sorry for your brother.

But what would tort reform have done to prevent this case?

The word "government" should never appear in the same sentence with either "quality" or "affordable".

If you need a toilet seat, you can buy one at Home Depot and buy one for $29.99 or you could ask the government, US Navy to be exact, to sell you one at their cost: $800.

OK, I accept this argument, but consider the rediculousness of the current situation that makes your argument valid. Why can I, with no insurance, go into any emergency room and demand treatment without payment?

Consider that other life necessity, food. If I'm starving, I can't go to the grocery and demand free food. If I can't afford a house, I can't go to the hotel and demand a free room. Why can I demand health care? Is food not more important? Is shelter not more important? For both food and shelter, there are government or charity resources, but there is no law dictating that a private business must provide for me. Heart attacks not withstanding, most people showing up at the ER with no insurance are not in emergency situations, right?

You're right, health care is a commodity. And it needs to be treated like a commodity. If you can't afford it, you go to the free clinic, which is equivalent to food stamps. You should not get to demand expensive treatment at the ER.

My other beef with healthcare is the artificial restrictions on availabiltiy that increase costs. We simply need more physicians, and we need for many prescription medications to go OTC or BTC so that the physician can be left out of the equation (edit: after initial diagnosis) for chronic issues.

You can thank the government for that. They wrote a law (the so-called anti-dumping law) preventing hospitals from refusing care or transferring patients who do not have the ability to pay.

People w/heart attacks actually do generally have insurance (Medicare).

The funniest thing that Arnie wants is to tax MD's an extra 2% and hospitals an extra 4% as part of the way to raise revenue for the program. This leads to a semantic difference that everyone is "insured" woohoo. Funny thing, although the providers now will get paid something (small), it will come from money they had to pay the government - that makes a lot of sense! Obviously, the amount that will be sent to the government will be higher than any amount they will receive back (otherwise it wouldn't be government).

Don't get me started on all these small business owners who make a pretty good living, but don't carry insurance because it "costs too much". Yeah, the number of uninsured people is going up! A lot of these folks make $100K+ a year, they're just too cheap to pay for insurance. And how about the constuction contractors that hire day labor...:mad: You get the picture.