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Originally Posted by TexTushHog
CBO says that there is very little defensive medicine...
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I don't believe that for a minute.
The CBO also says the new health care bill will not be that much of a budget buster! No one familiar with the issue seriously believes that. The problem is that they apply parameters given them by people who seek a certain score. A recent CBO director, writing in the
New York Times, described it as "fantasy in, fantasy out."
Some libertarian and conservative analysts have estimated that truly effective tort reform could save more than $100 billion per year. Of course, their analysis is attacked by the American Association for Justice and other apologists for the tort bar, but is it any less objective?
Who knows where the truth is? It's fair to say that it's somewhere in between the two extremes. But I don't think it's a trivial sum, even in today's world of wasteful trillion-dollar "stimulus" packages.
Whatever the case, meaningful tort reform isn't going to happen. Remember the words of the late Fred Baron? Pointing to a WSJ editorial saying the U.S. Senate was "all but run by" the trial lawyers lobby, he joked that he strenuously rejected the claim, especially the "all but" part!
Powerful senators like Harry Reid and Dick Durbin are largely bought and paid for by plaintiff's lawyers. And they are honest politicians.
When they get bought, they stay bought!
Quote:
Originally Posted by TexTushHog
The separation is further complicated by the fact that what are perceived as defensive practices today may morph into tomorrow’s standard of care.
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Wow.
If that's the case, there will be even more upward pressure on health care costs.
TexTushHog, you mentioned that you strongly oppose the coupling of HSAs with catastrophic event policies. If we don't have reforms along the lines of such a model, how else are we going to have even a remote chance to control costs? As it now stands, the end consumer has no incentive at all to control costs. Money travels around through multiple parties, and someone else is paying close to 90% of the freight. It's just about the furthest thing possible from a market-based system.
If you don't want to be serious about eliminating perverse incentives, the only other effective way to slash costs is to shove everyone into a U.K. style single-payer system and place it on a tight budget. It would involve severe rationing of services, and I'm not sure that would go over very well.
Absent a serious solution, the already out-of-control deficit will simply mushroom. We're building a bridge to a fiscal train wreck and no one looks like they have any intention of doing anything whatsoever about it.
Here's an uncomfortable question for you progressives: Do you seriously think any prominent politician has the balls to tell the American middle class they're going to have to accept a huge tax increase?
