Back to Being Me, part 3

To continue my thoughts about healthcare:

Why the new healthcare law will fail miserably (part 3):

1. It totally fails to address the real problems in the US healthcare system.

a. Over-indulgence by the insurance companies.

b. Unsustainable growth (in this case, by Universal Coverage).
(read prior posts to catch up on these points)


c. no tort-reform on law suits.

When President Obama gave his healthcare pitch to congress (and the nation), he had only a few points that made both sides of the aisle applaud. the biggest was the promise that there would be reform on malpractice insurance and lawsuits (tort reform). If anyone notices, this never made it into the law. Now, let's not be critical of Mr Obama. He truly did want to know if the healthcare system had a problem with frivolous lawsuits. He wanted to know so badly that he tasked his Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, to find out for him. She said that frivolous lawsuits probably only cost insurance companies about 5 billion dollars a year...not enough to be worried about. Ultimately, she said that tort reform/lawsuits aren't a problem. I was PERSONALLY relieved to hear her unbiased opinion. Oh, as a sidenote, prior to being the Secretary of Health and Human Services for Obama, Sebelius served as executive director and CHIEF LOBBYIST for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association. So naturally, she is impartial to matters concerning lawsuits/lawyers.
First off, I don't find a 5 billion dollar savings to be something that is just brushed aside.
Secondly, there is no way to put a price tag on the cost of frivilous lawsuits because they cause reactions that are not measurable. For instance, they are the driving force behind "defensive medicine." For those not in healthcare, "defensive medicine" is when a Physician orders every possible test available, despite a lack of clear medical necessity, because they are afraid of getting sued if they miss something...even if the patient had no indications/symptoms. Thousands of times every day, an expensive MRI is ordered, when its likelihood of showing anything more than an Ultrasound, is statistically insignificant. Physician documentation and language has changed from "evaluate for symptomatic XXXX" to "rule out XXXX." That may seem like an insignificant change, but it costs patients millions (and probably billions) of dollars every year in additional co-pays and out-of-pocket expense. The end result is NOT the hope of finding some undiagnosed illness...it's the ability to sway a jury, in a court of law, to view the physician as someone who did everything possible...even beyond "standards of practice." And I won't even get into the fact that if an insurance company denies a medically indicated test it's the doctor who gets sued if there is a bad outcome....
Thirdly, is the fact that the original 5B in savings doesn't factor in the steady increases in malpractice insurance. I think that very few people have any idea what it would be like to be forced to make a split-second, life-and-death decision based on: limited current patient information, no comprehensive medical history, and no background of events...and know that if you're wrong, you could be sued and lose everything. So, many types of practices pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per physician, per year in malpractice insurance. And who pays for that? The doctor? you and I both know that it is passed on to the patient in higher costs. And again (referring back to my previous posts), the ones who truly pay for it the most are the uninsured.
There needs to be tort reform. There needs to be regulated price caps for insurance, and there needs to be lawsuit caps on liability. $10M won't bring gramma back. yes, her death may have been unfortunate. yes, given the situation her death might have been post-poned. but $10M? It doesn't bring her back. It doesn't make the pain go away. All it does is drive up costs for everyone...and encourage frivolous lawsuits from everyone on the planet who lost a loved one...regardless of circumstance. And those lawsuits cost money, even if the healthcare provider is proven to be not-at-fault.
If we want true reform on the lawsuits, there is one simple way to reform it. Make one tiny law: if you lose a lawsuit, you have to pay for the defendent's legal fees and damages. Frivolotry, thinks twice.
It seems that this entire law does nothing but give more power and less regulation to the insurance companies...while doing nothing for the patient or the provider.