Why not pick some low hanging fruit, how about reasonable limits on jury awards for medical law suits?
If you really care about health care costs, consider the all the costs passed onto the medical consumer due to trial lawyers and fear of litigation:
1) the cost of unnecessary tests, procedures and operations patients
are forced to endure and finance, for fear of lawsuits.
2) the “run-away” jury awards, which trial lawyers take 35% – 40%
3) all the frivolous law suits- trial lawyers initiate 20 suits, hoping just
one pays off where they can be compensated $10,000 per hour for
the time they spent on the case.
4) the high cost of malpractice insurance, all health care providers
and doctors have to pay for and then pass the cost back to the
consumer.
5) America is by far the most litigous country in the world because
we are the only country where the plaintiff has no financial
obligation to the defendant for the cost to defend frivolous law
suits.
All these costs are passed onto the consumer, exponentially increasing the cost of health care.
Whatever you think of insurance companies, drug companies and capitalism, there is no argunment to oppose reasonable limits and caps on jury awards and judgements IF you care about the cost of health care.
Why do liberals stand against reasonable caps and limits on law suits?
If you oppose tort reform isn’t it obvious its really just about breaking the back of the health care industry to achieve socilaized medicine?
Ellen
Melinda
Very simple. Most members of congress are LAWYERS. Why would they even suggest a bill that would limit their pay? In this country, we only limit the pay of CEO’s… NOT trial attorneys.
Darren
Because it doesn’t lower health care costs. Missouri, Texas and other states have strong tort settlement caps in place. Their costs are going up just as much as the rest of the country.
Melanie
The only figure I have heard on the cost of the current tort system as it applies to health care is $30 billion per year.
It’s about government control, no costs. Libs just want to have the power to tell everyone what to do.
Ray
Health care reform is not being proposed. Focus is on mandating insurance to those that dont currently have it, whether they want it or not. No efforts at this time to control costs.
Roger
They are on the side of trial lawyers and they say the costs are insignificant.
When in fact malpractice costs are about 150 billion a year.
Leonard
I am a liberal and I understand than tort reform should be an integral part of health care reform. The problem is that the ones who don’t believe it is a problem are lawyers and therefore do not see it is a problem.
Anthony
Because their media sources have conveniently failed to bring it to their attention. Or, if it has been brought up, they have downplayed the monetary impact that the lack of tort reform has on our healthcare system.
There are 2 streams of media going on in this country. If you focus all your attention on one (liberal or conservative) then the other one seems like Greek. We are arguing over issues from two entirely different persepectives that seem to have no concept of the other.
Norma
Good post.
I would also like to see them cut most of the costly government regulations that add unnecessary expenses and paperwork to our system. But yes, litigation reduction would be #1.
Melissa
In some states where there has been some tort reform there has been no measurable reduction in medical costs. So although there appears to be some logic behind the idea of tort reform to control medical costs, the empirical evidence does not support it.
Of course tort reform would not be necessary if juries would stop issuing outrageous awards.
Ashley
I totally agree. Even though states that already have tort reform laws on the books don’t have lower medical costs than states that don’t; it’s still important to protect the insurance companies from the whiners who say “In this country, people shouldn’t be dying of preventable and treatable conditions! Waah!”, “What do you mean it’s a pre-existing condition? Waah!”, and “If I don’t get treatment I will die!” Well, boo hoo.
Albert
I myself am not necessarily against capping punitive damages. However tort reform has occurred in other areas of this country without discernible difference. Bankruptcy laws have been changed to overwhelmingly favor the debtor, has that really benefited us as consumers?
The role of business in a capitalist society is not have profit. It is to maximize profit. And with the cost of consumer items going up how have we the consumer seen the benefits of tort reform already?
Roberta
Nothing will be done about this because our elected leaders are mostly lawyers themselves. Heck, Edwards made his career off of medical malpractice.
I was wondering if all the talking heads had forgotten this topic too. Since it has seemed to be missing from all discussions. Capping lawsuit awards seems appropriate cost cutting measure.
In my experience, the physicians that get sued are not the ones that did anything wrong. The horrible physicians seem to never have litigation brought against them.
Sam
Point of order on #2 the take of trail lawyers is >70% normally.
Edwards made his money but doing just that.
Those who think the victim wins are wrong it is the lawyers who take the lion share of that money not the victim.
That is something the left keep blowing over.
WI try to limit the take to 70% but it was the trail lawyers who fought it to the point the bill die.
Ray
Republicans want to cap the amount a corporation can be liable for when they have done wrong
BAD NEWS for consumers—-i.e. Ford pinto
the term reasonable to Republicans is NONE
just like the answer to what kind of health care reform do they really want—NONE
Tort reform is just another DEREGULATION that the greedy corporations want.
And we have all seen what Republican Deregulation has done to the average American !!
as we all know the billionaires haven’t been substantially hurt at all in this recession caused by their greed and their parties pushing of McCain and other Republicans to deregulate everything in the name of profit
Years of conservative agitation about trial lawyers have led the public to believe that the courts are clogged with “frivolous lawsuits.” But that belief is unlikely to withstand a national debate, because the truth is fundamentally different from what tort reformers pretend. There has indeed been a rise in frivolous claims. But they haven’t been brought by personal injury lawyers; those claims have actually decreased over the last decade. The single factor most clogging the judicial system is frivolous litigation brought by corporations against corporations, which don’t involve independent trial lawyers at all. For example, John Deere went after a competitor for using the same shade of green that Deere paints its tractors. Gillette sued Norelco, claiming its ads for a new electric razor were “false and deceptive” because they depicted non-electric razors as “ferocious creatures.” Nabisco sued Keebler over the latter’s claim that its chocolate-chip cookies contained 25 percent more chips than Nabisco’s. Each of these cases is more representative of the true problem of frivolous litigation. But because they involve a Republican constituency—business—rather than a Democrat constituency like trial lawyers, tort reform advocates don’t mention them.
Amy
It’s been said by many reliable sources that lawsuits are only about 5% or less of the insurance company’s budgets, so while reasonable limits seem in order, it probably would not affect anybody’s bill much, despite the companies themselves, who want to wring every nickle out of the public they can.
But the sensational lawsuits never really go as reported in the media – the McDonalds coffee lady only ended up getting about $400,000, and that was with $250,000 out of pocket medical bills including skin grafts.
She really was badly burned! And McDonalds had in house documents saying make the coffee really HOT so no one will realise how lousy it is until they’ve driven away a bit.
Ronnie
Medical malpractice lawsuits are not a significant cost of health care. We need to focus on reality and not on special interests. The primary concern of our health care system should be to keep us healthy, not to maximize profit potential.
Melanie
Liberals can and will not say anything about trial lawyers, they are in a partnership together.
Liberal politicians are heavily financed from the money extorted by trial lawyers, including Obama, they take a great deal of money from trial lawyers, in exchange for opposing tort reform.
Liberals can not and will not be honest about tort reform. They will only complain about drug companies, insurance companies and capitalism.
Yes, liberals just want to break the back of the health care industry, socialism is the agenda, not lowering the costs to the consumer.
Do you recall Michael Moore’s trash documentary on health care, “Sicko”? Well, somehow Mike left out the most obvious factor in the cost of health care, trial lawyers were given a pass.
Deep down but they won’t admit it, liberals will discuss tort reform only after we have full blown socialism in health care. Once liberals achieve their goal, they will call off their dogs (trial lawyers) but only then.
Teresa
Because less than 1% of health care spending involves law suits and legal settlements. Because there are already laws in place which call for judges to bring contempt of court charges against attorneys who file frivolous suits; we don’t need new laws, we need to insist that judges enforce the laws we already have. Because this should be addressed in ways that do not restrict the right of citizens to seek monetary compensation for injuries due to negligence or preventable error, in ways that do not prevent juries and judges from adding punitive damages sizable enough to be a deterrent to future negligence or error.
Bessie
@ Don B…This is one of the few areas where both sides can actually work together for a ‘reasonable’ solution and all you’re doing is throwing rocks.
There’s plenty of blame to go around.
TORT Reform…Accessibility to insurance across state lines…and even this idea of Co-Ops (if we can keep the federal government from screwing it up) are all things that could benefit all Americans.
We don’t have to behave like children just because the politicians do.
Kathleen
TORT Reform is only a “talking point” by the Republican Party. If you’ll notice, the Republican Party had full control of Congress, Senate as well as the White House between the years of 2000 and 2006 and did nothing about TORT Reform – Your point might be taken a little more serous if when in power, Republican’s acted upon what they “talk about” during elections or during a heated debate such as Healthcare Reform, but they haven’t and won’t.
If you’ll notice, the vast majority of elected officials are Lawyers (on both sides), they are not going to bite the hand that’s feeding them – ever.
Pamela
Libs only say what other libs say, they only repeat other liberals statements and positions. Most of the propaganda comes from activist media like NY Times or activist groups like moveontosocialism.org.
Liberals can not answer this question, so they throw up red herrings-
1) tort reform has been proven to make no improvement (the source
is liberal research- propaganda).
2) evil corporations like drug and insurance co’s are 100% at fault
3) trial lawyers are the crusaders for the poor (thats why they take
40% contingency fees).
4) deny frivolous law suits occur
None of the answers liberals will give you, will justify why we shouldn’t have caps and limits on awards and judgements. Liberals are either dishonest, lemmings or dishonest lemmings.
Liberals don’t care about the cost of health care, they care only about socialism.