Lawyers, Sums, and Money

The House healthcare bill, all 1,990 pages of it, has landed in the Republic's lap. I am guessing you could global warming back on track just by burning a few copies of it. Instead, we will burning through a lot more money. Here is one account, from NASDAC:

The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday a U.S. House health-care system re-write would extend health insurance to 96% of the nonelderly U.S. population by 2019, and spend $1.055 trillion to do so.

Penalties imposed on individuals who did not purchase insurance, and employers who did not offer coverage to their workers, would raise $161 billion over that time-frame. That brings the net cost of the bill to $894 billion through 2019, CBO said.

I suppose the new definition of cheap is "under a trillion." But will this policy really be even that cheap? Republicans doubt it, but then, that is their job. From the Washington Post:

Republicans on Capitol Hill are challenging an assertion by House leaders that their new health-care package comes in under President Obama's spending limit of $900 billion over the next decade. The true cost of the measure, the GOP argues, is more than $1 trillion. A House leadership aide dismissed the charge as "GOP spin." But, in this case, the spin is essentially true.

What brings the House bill under a cool trillion is all the money that is expected to come from scofflaws who refuse to buy insurance. That, and big cuts in existing Medicare programs. That's reassuring, except that Congress will never actually make such cuts. The cost of this kind of program is always more, a lot more, than initially projected.

But you don't have to speculate. Just look at the provisions in the bill that are specifically designed to avoid cost control. Here, from Breitbart's Big Government, is one juicy morsel in the bill:

Section 2531, entitled "Medical Liability Alternatives," establishes an incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation. [But]…… a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys' fees or imposes caps on damages.

Now it's one thing for Congress to refuse to enact tort reform as part of its healthcare reform. It would save $54 billion over ten years, but whoever pays for healthcare reform, it ain't going to be lawyers. It's another thing to penalize states for trying to enact tort reform on their own. This is a bit more love than trial lawyers probably deserve.

If Congress can't say no to the trial lawyers, who can they say no to? I mean, besides the insurance industry? The idea that this legislation will be cheap or affordable is sheer fantasy.

Comments

[ChristopherMD]

I am a physician. This makes me so mad I can not stand it. This is insulting. Not a single one of my colleagues agrees with this madness. Make no mistake, we will be heard at the polling booth.

[A.I.]

With all due respect ChristopherMD, you apparently refer to colleagues within your own clinic or circle of friends. I know at least one doctor who is four-square in favor of health reform similar to what is being proposed and bristles at the prospect of reform that does not include a strong public option. Polling of physicians shows he is far from alone. Which is to say that from strictly a vote-garnering aspect, there may be little for politicians to gain from Doctors no matter how they vote on this issue.

[George Mason]

A.I. you may be talking to too many like minded people and reading only the WH polls. Doctors in private practice (especially those who handle Medicare and Medicaid patients) as Christopher obviously is, will tell you that the paperwork
requirements will take up more time than tending to patients. This is currently
the reason so many doctors are refusing to take Medicare patients or simply
getting out of medicine. When Obama has turned all the doctors into bureaucrats
who will be left to see the sick and injured. If you get the chance you should sit down with your doctor and ask him what is entailed in dealing with Medicare and Medicaid patients.Then you can extrapolate that to what it will be when all of us are in that system. While you are at it ask him what he paid last year for malpractice insurance and what his deductable is. Then ask him if he will be
willing to stay in medicine when most of his day will be consumed by paperwork and he still has a 25% chance of being sued every year. Then buy him a beer and wish him well for me. Good luck finding a doctor under Obamacare.

[will]

Costs associated with med-mal are about 0.5% of the cost of health care. http://factcheck.org/2009/10/malpractice-savings-...

I argue that the cost is justified - it goes toward compensating victims of medical negligence. So yes, this provision is a gift to the trial lawyers but it is also a crucial right for patients.

Tort reform is a gift to insurance companies and HMO's specifically. In a world with no liability for medical errors, HMO bureaucrats can "manage" the care of the Physicians with impunity.

Imposing a cost on negligent medical decisions creates an incentive to place ultimate decision making responsibility with Doctors, because Doctors are best qualified to make those decisions. As a patient, that's the way I want it.

It is stunning how many people have swallowed the Chamber of Commerce lies on Tort Reform. Wake up people, you are not a HMO - you are a patient; you are a plaintiff. Support your interests, support your rights. Demand a system that holds decision makers responsible and support Section 2531.

[George Mason]

Unfortunately Will the figure you site is the lawyers favorite because it only covers litigation. It does not take into account the costs passed on to the consumer due to malpractice insurance for doctors, liability insurance for
clinics, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, the manufacturers of medical
devices and equipment. These costs are huge enough. Then you have to add in the
costs of defensive medicine. The Pacific Research Institute calculates these costs to be $242Billion per year. So I would make the same suggestion to you that was made to A.I. Make sure that when you start quoting numbers you add in all the relevant numbers. If you had ever owned or managed a business you would have better appreciation for the costs the threat of liability imposes. If you were truly concerned about patients instead of protecting contingency fees you would make close scrutiny of the states where it is hard to obtain the services of certain specialists because the legal profession has found juries easy to shop for. People in Florida for instance may have to travel some distance to find the services of an OB-GYN for this reason. Doctors are going to leave states where the potential for litigation is high (and the ability to obtain malpractice insurance is low). This is another cost you can add in. It is obviously difficult to quantify but it is there. The American legal profession may be the single greatest internal threat to our freedoms and economic well being. Unfortunately the only check on there ability to work mischief are the state legislatures and congress, and they are dominated by lawyers.

[George Mason]

InRe the earlier post: As fate would have it Investors Business Daily has an editorial by Thomas Sowell, an Economist at Stanford concerning this topic.:

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=510866

This is a nice concise read.

[KB]

I'm with George Mason on this one. The cost of medical malpractice law in this country are enormous and far reaching. But the larger problem is that for every fifty billion or so that we spend on something, there is a argument like the one that will made for tort lawyers. The only way to control costs is to say "yeah, but no" to some of these arguments. Congress isn't good at that.

[ptcgetrich]

Healthcare is so important and so many people are forced to do without it. Not everyone can afford expensive health plans, and even when they can they are almost always getting cheated with the expensive premiums. I just finished up a lawsuit with my medical provider which turned out was the fault of my premium health insurance. Please if you have problems and seek advice talk to an attorney.

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Attorney