By now people in the know have heard and read about Sarah Palin sounding off on Obamacare. In her 8/21/09 Facebook post, No Health Care Reform Without Legal Reform, she states that " we cannot have health care reform without tort reform. The two are intertwined. For example, one supposed justification for socialized medicine is the high cost of health care. As Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently noted, “If Mr. Obama is serious about lowering costs, he'll need to reform the economic structures in medicine—especially programs like Medicare.” Two examples of these “economic structures” are high malpractice insurance premiums foisted on physicians (and ultimately passed on to consumers as “high health care costs”) and the billions wasted on defensive medicine."
In other words look at what the root causes of high costs, then take steps to eliminate them. Gov. Palin goes further, citing that "Dr. Stuart Weinstein, with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, recently explained the problem:
”The medical liability crisis has had many unintended consequences, most notably a decrease in access to care in a growing number of states and an increase in healthcare costs. Access is affected as physicians move their practices to states with lower liability rates and change their practice patterns to reduce or eliminate high-risk services. When one considers that half of all neurosurgeons—as well as one third of all orthopedic surgeons, one third of all emergency physicians, and one third of all trauma surgeons—are sued each year, is it any wonder that 70 percent of emergency departments are at risk because they lack available on-call specialist coverage?”
Dr. Weinstein makes good points, points completely ignored by President Obama. Dr. Weinstein details the costs that our out-of-control tort system are causing the health care industry and notes research that “found that liability reforms could reduce defensive medicine practices, leading to a 5 percent to 9 percent reduction in medical expenditures without any effect on mortality or medical complications."
A case study where tort reform works is in Texas. "Texas enacted caps and found that one county’s medical malpractice claims dropped 41 percent, and another study found a “55 percent decline” after reform measures were passed. That’s one step in health care reform. Limiting lawyer contingency fees, as is done under the Federal Tort Claims Act, is another step.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry noted that, after his state enacted tort reform measures, the number of doctors applying to practice medicine in Texas “skyrocketed by 57 percent” and that the tort reforms “brought critical specialties to underserved areas.” These are real reforms that actually improve access to health care."
On August 27th, The Washington Times came out with a piece showing where Democrats are on Tort Reform. At a Town Hall meeting held by Rep. James P. Moran (D-VA), Howard Dean said the following:
DEAN: When you go to pass an enormous bill like that, the more stuff you put in it, the more enemies you make. The reason that tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on, and that is the plain and simple truth.... This bill has enough enemies. The more groups you take on, the more enemies you make.
There you have it. The Democrats won't take on the trial lawyers. Could it be because, if you follow the money, 95 percent of their federal campaign donations in virtually every election cycle -- to the Democrats who are writing the bills?
"Mollycoddling of lawyers is legislative malpractice. In state after state that has tried medical malpractice reform -- there are 25 in all -- costs have gone down, the number of doctors settling in the state has gone up, and patient services have improved. As far back as 2003, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported that high litigation costs contributed to declines in health care quality. In 2007, researchers Jonathan Klick of Florida State University and Thomas Stratmann of George Mason University reported that malpractice reforms also appear to have a substantial, beneficial effect on historically underserved populations -- for instance, by cutting black infant mortality rates by 6 percent."
Would-be reformers who refuse to stop lawsuit abuse give lie to their claims to be putting patients first. Mr. Dean's candor should awaken congressional Democrats. It was already wakened Americans. The same Americans who trust government to fix healthcare about as much as they trust them to fix the post office, Amtrak, and cash for clunkers. (HT Washington Times, Sarah Palin (on Facebook), AAOS, ABA Journal, & Washington Examiner):
Washington Times: EDITORIAL: Health Care Run By Trial Lawyers
Sarah Palin: No Health Care Reform Without Legal Reform
AAOS: The Cost Of Defensive Medicine
ABA Journal: Tort Reform Texas Style
Washington Examiner: Gov. Rick Perry: Tort Reform Must Be Part Of Health Care Reform
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