An important point that Michael Moore left out:
I pretend to go on a journey, like Moore, to discover how other countries handle the malpractice lottery. It turns out they have great answers for that as well. Without tort reform and malpractice insurance reform, doctors in this country will continue to order tests to cover their asses instead of being cautious but fiscally responsible. This issue is real and adds to the bankrupting of our healthcare system. A point Moore left out.
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{ 9 comments }
It looks like some one performed an unspeakable act upon that gavel.
Compare to other systems all you want. Then give us universal healthcare like they have, and your malpractice worries will be gone.
Of course, others will take their place.
It would seem that part of the problem with Universal Healthcare is that it changes the financial equation that doctors bet on when they dedicated so much of their lives and their own money to becoming doctors. To them, it may be a bit like stealing their future in the un-fairest way possible.
However, public health would benefit by a system that has universal coverage with co-pays to prevent abuse but universal coverage so that people don’t have to worry about going to a doctor about a condition that would make them un-insurable in the future.
The part of malpractice that is in dispute is “pain and suffering” or noneconomic damages. No one proposes limiting economic damages, except sometimes government programs.
Universal healthcare would conceivably address the question of future healthcare, which is an economic damage.
“Pain and suffering” would be the same regardless of the healthcare financing scheme. Why would universal healthcare somehow fix that?
Well, you somewhat beg the question – why should it be “fixed”? Is something wrong with it?
No one knows what the average pain and suffering award is, or at least no one but the insurers, and they ain’t telling – they just publicize the large verdicts, rarely with any breakdown.
However, it’s unlikely many people would go to the trouble of a trial if they didn’t have the financial need to do so to pay past medical bills, or future ones were they uninsurable, or need to make up for lost income because they now had to provide full time care to a brain damaged child, for example.
Also, it’s likely if the govt. takes over the whole thing, there will be a workers comp style no-fault system with caps on all types of damages.
Anon 5:04 that is a great point. Imagine if you are a 4th year med student right now with 200,000 in debt. The ideas floating around is not a part of the equation you signed up for.
If Universal Care comes to fruition in the next 10 years, do you suppose medical education will be completely subsidized by the gov’t? And if so, will the government repay the money that past medical school graduates have paid to complete their education? How many years back would they go?
This is a serious question.
Well if the government’s going to think about paying the tuition for all those physicians and future medical students, how about all those lawyers who went to law school planing on a career in malpractice litigation?
How many is that?
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