Government Health Care
- Thread starter ChopperDave
- Start date
Was it a good one Mike? If the mods did it, wouldn't it say so? The first one has your sig line and the second not? More curious? Vintage Bob
Bob - yeah, that is weird. I just looked at it in edit mode - all of my post was there! Then messing around with it - I deleted it! (had to leave something as a too short error showed up - so my excellent post is now limited to "dfsg"! oh well... guess it wasnt important - only saying it is a screwed up system, that got that way over many years, and that WE ALL - as individuals, both political parties are in part responsible, right along with the insurance companies and others. I have worked for 25 years in various health care admin related positions - including that as member of the board of directors for a HMO - so I have a bit of an insiders perspective.
(btw - how did that 370/400 project come out?)
(btw - how did that 370/400 project come out?)
Mike! Kinda bummed about wiseco dumping their parts for them dogs. There was a heck of a run of pistons and rings on fleabay, now they are even less! I have a really strong running 400, not much to look at. The 97 cr 250 and 83 480 are taking priority. My kids do not want me to ride the 480, too pretty. PFFFFT! That dude is going to Redbud! And I just seen a guy turn down 4000 for one. Vintage Bob
As Thomas Jefferson said,
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
I would suggest that we all spend some time reading what the Founding Fathers wrote and said, It's very applicable to today's world!
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
I would suggest that we all spend some time reading what the Founding Fathers wrote and said, It's very applicable to today's world!
robwbright
Member
- Apr 8, 2005
- 2,283
- 0
dirt bike dave said:
When most people say "tort reform", they mean putting limits on the maximum amount that a person can recover for a given injury, etc. . .
Umm. . . let's see. The constitution guarantees trial by jury of any civil matter in which the amount in controversy exceeds $20.
The amount of damages is a question for the jury, is it not? It's traditionally been one of the main parts to be decided in a jury trial.
Are you saying that juries are too stupid to properly determine what the damages in a particular case are?
Are you advocating a repeal of the 7th Amendment to the Constitution?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
If you had any idea how rigged the game is in favor of insurance companies, you'd be wanting tort reform in the other direction. The insurance companies regularly bring the large verdicts on themselves because they refuse to settle for a reasonable amount.
In one car accident case we had in 2005, the 63 y/o woman plaintiff was sent by her GP to an ortho who said she needed a knee replacement (her knee hit the dash). Both docs said the knee replacement was necessary because of the auto accident. The whore doc hired by the insurance company said she didn't need the knee replacement. She had $83,000 in medical bills. The best offer from the insurance company was $12,000. We would have settled for $50,000 - $60,000 to avoid the risk of loss at a trial.
BTW, the reason they offered $12,000 is because a worker at the insurance company inputs the injuries suffered by the plaintiff into a computer program and the computer spits out a dollar figure for each injury. The insurance company refused to include the knee replacement (solely because their whore doc said she didn't need it - after examining her for 1.5 hours). Thus, they offered only the $12,000.00.
The jury found in her favor - $233,000.00 - past meds, future meds, past and future pain and suffering. Further, since the insurance company didn't make a reasonable offer prior to trial, the judge hit them with pre-judgment interest on the verdict amount back to the date of the accident. That added another $70,000.00 to the verdict.
Wouldn't it have made more sense to settle the case for $50,000? But no, Allsnake chose to take their chances at trial and they got burned. And I say that they got exactly what they deserve.
In a deja vu moment, I'm about to assist in a trial in which the insurance company doc saw my client for about 1.5 hours and reviewed her records. He says that all of her injuries from getting rear ended at 55 mph (she was at a dead stop) should have resolved in 6 weeks and that her damages are maybe worth $10,000.00.
Two of her treating physicians say she needs a total knee replacement and that her medicals related to the accident are and will be closer to $100,000.00.
Who would you believe? Both of her treating physicians? Or the whore paid for by the ins. co. No reasonable offer from the insurance company yet.
Oh yea, I didn't mention that the whore physician made $980,000.00 in the last three years reviewing records and giving depositions - ONLY for insurance companies. Nice work if you can get it - you don't even have to treat patients - just review records and see them for a little while. No malpractice liability issues.
The insurance companies in Ohio can call on this doc in ANY CASE and he will say the patient/plaintiff should only take 3-6 weeks to recover from the accident - without fail and no matter what the actual injuries are. And he is the star witness for the defense in a very large percentage of car accident cases. he's really good at it, too, because he gets so much practice testifying. Our client's ortho has never even given a deposition before.
That's the real world in Court - not the fantasy world that most tort reform advocates live in.
robwbright
Member
- Apr 8, 2005
- 2,283
- 0
robwbright
Member
- Apr 8, 2005
- 2,283
- 0
Here is how to fix health care:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe21.html
It's time to get serious about health care reform. Tax credits, vouchers, and privatization will go a long way toward decentralizing the system and removing unnecessary burdens from business. But four additional steps must also be taken:
1. Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health care personnel. Their supply would almost instantly increase, prices would fall, and a greater variety of health care services would appear on the market.
Competing voluntary accreditation agencies would take the place of compulsory government licensing – if health care providers believe that such accreditation would enhance their own reputation, and that their consumers care about reputation, and are willing to pay for it.
Because consumers would no longer be duped into believing that there is such a thing as a "national standard" of health care, they will increase their search costs and make more discriminating health care choices.
(It's called personal responsibility, people.).
2. Eliminate all government restrictions on the production and sale of pharmaceutical products and medical devices. This means no more Food and Drug Administration, which presently hinders innovation and increases costs.
Costs and prices would fall, and a wider variety of better products would reach the market sooner. The market would force consumers to act in accordance with their own – rather than the government's – risk assessment. And competing drug and device manufacturers and sellers, to safeguard against product liability suits as much as to attract customers, would provide increasingly better product descriptions and guarantees.
3. Deregulate the health insurance industry. Private enterprise can offer insurance against events over whose outcome the insured possesses no control. One cannot insure oneself against suicide or bankruptcy, for example, because it is in one's own hands to bring these events about.
Because a person's health, or lack of it, lies increasingly within his own control, many, if not most health risks, are actually uninsurable. "Insurance" against risks whose likelihood an individual can systematically influence falls within that person's own responsibility.
All insurance, moreover, involves the pooling of individual risks. It implies that insurers pay more to some and less to others. But no one knows in advance, and with certainty, who the "winners" and "losers" will be. "Winners" and "losers" are distributed randomly, and the resulting income redistribution is unsystematic. If "winners" or "losers" could be systematically predicted, "losers" would not want to pool their risk with "winners," but with other "losers," because this would lower their insurance costs. I would not want to pool my personal accident risks with those of professional football players, for instance, but exclusively with those of people in circumstances similar to my own, at lower costs.
Because of legal restrictions on the health insurers' right of refusal – to exclude any individual risk as uninsurable – the present health-insurance system is only partly concerned with insurance. The industry cannot discriminate freely among different groups' risks.
As a result, health insurers cover a multitude of uninsurable risks, alongside, and pooled with, genuine insurance risks. They do not discriminate among various groups of people which pose significantly different insurance risks. The industry thus runs a system of income redistribution – benefiting irresponsible actors and high-risk groups at the expense of responsible individuals and low-risk groups. Accordingly the industry's prices are high and ballooning.
To deregulate the industry means to restore it to unrestricted freedom of contract: to allow a health insurer to offer any contract whatsoever, to include or exclude any risk, and to discriminate among any groups of individuals.
Uninsurable risks would lose coverage, the variety of insurance policies for the remaining coverage would increase, and price differentials would reflect genuine insurance risks. On average, prices would drastically fall. And the reform would restore individual responsibility in health care.
4. Eliminate all subsidies to the sick or unhealthy. Subsidies create more of whatever is being subsidized. Subsidies for the ill and diseased breed illness and disease, and promote carelessness, indigence, and dependency. If we eliminate them, we would strengthen the will to live healthy lives and to work for a living. In the first instance, that means abolishing Medicare and Medicaid.
Only these four steps, although drastic, will restore a fully free market in medical provision. Until they are adopted, the industry will have serious problems, and so will we, its consumers.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe21.html
It's time to get serious about health care reform. Tax credits, vouchers, and privatization will go a long way toward decentralizing the system and removing unnecessary burdens from business. But four additional steps must also be taken:
1. Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health care personnel. Their supply would almost instantly increase, prices would fall, and a greater variety of health care services would appear on the market.
Competing voluntary accreditation agencies would take the place of compulsory government licensing – if health care providers believe that such accreditation would enhance their own reputation, and that their consumers care about reputation, and are willing to pay for it.
Because consumers would no longer be duped into believing that there is such a thing as a "national standard" of health care, they will increase their search costs and make more discriminating health care choices.
(It's called personal responsibility, people.).
2. Eliminate all government restrictions on the production and sale of pharmaceutical products and medical devices. This means no more Food and Drug Administration, which presently hinders innovation and increases costs.
Costs and prices would fall, and a wider variety of better products would reach the market sooner. The market would force consumers to act in accordance with their own – rather than the government's – risk assessment. And competing drug and device manufacturers and sellers, to safeguard against product liability suits as much as to attract customers, would provide increasingly better product descriptions and guarantees.
3. Deregulate the health insurance industry. Private enterprise can offer insurance against events over whose outcome the insured possesses no control. One cannot insure oneself against suicide or bankruptcy, for example, because it is in one's own hands to bring these events about.
Because a person's health, or lack of it, lies increasingly within his own control, many, if not most health risks, are actually uninsurable. "Insurance" against risks whose likelihood an individual can systematically influence falls within that person's own responsibility.
All insurance, moreover, involves the pooling of individual risks. It implies that insurers pay more to some and less to others. But no one knows in advance, and with certainty, who the "winners" and "losers" will be. "Winners" and "losers" are distributed randomly, and the resulting income redistribution is unsystematic. If "winners" or "losers" could be systematically predicted, "losers" would not want to pool their risk with "winners," but with other "losers," because this would lower their insurance costs. I would not want to pool my personal accident risks with those of professional football players, for instance, but exclusively with those of people in circumstances similar to my own, at lower costs.
Because of legal restrictions on the health insurers' right of refusal – to exclude any individual risk as uninsurable – the present health-insurance system is only partly concerned with insurance. The industry cannot discriminate freely among different groups' risks.
As a result, health insurers cover a multitude of uninsurable risks, alongside, and pooled with, genuine insurance risks. They do not discriminate among various groups of people which pose significantly different insurance risks. The industry thus runs a system of income redistribution – benefiting irresponsible actors and high-risk groups at the expense of responsible individuals and low-risk groups. Accordingly the industry's prices are high and ballooning.
To deregulate the industry means to restore it to unrestricted freedom of contract: to allow a health insurer to offer any contract whatsoever, to include or exclude any risk, and to discriminate among any groups of individuals.
Uninsurable risks would lose coverage, the variety of insurance policies for the remaining coverage would increase, and price differentials would reflect genuine insurance risks. On average, prices would drastically fall. And the reform would restore individual responsibility in health care.
4. Eliminate all subsidies to the sick or unhealthy. Subsidies create more of whatever is being subsidized. Subsidies for the ill and diseased breed illness and disease, and promote carelessness, indigence, and dependency. If we eliminate them, we would strengthen the will to live healthy lives and to work for a living. In the first instance, that means abolishing Medicare and Medicaid.
Only these four steps, although drastic, will restore a fully free market in medical provision. Until they are adopted, the industry will have serious problems, and so will we, its consumers.
robwbright
Member
- Apr 8, 2005
- 2,283
- 0
_JOE_ said:
That is exactly what people don't think about. If your employer was not providing your health insurance, he could afford to pay you thousands of dollars more per year in wages.
Which do you prefer? I'd rather have the cash, personally and be able to buy what I want with it - whether that be insruance or dirt bikes.
robwbright
Member
- Apr 8, 2005
- 2,283
- 0
BadgerMan said:
It's an older article, but still valid in my opinion/experience.
http://www.bailey-law.com/files/public_citizen_med_mal_challenge.pdf
The costs of doctor negligence and the medical liability system is much greater for patients than doctors. The IOM estimates the annual costs to society for medical errors in hospitals at $17 billion to $29 billion. These costs include disability and health care costs, lost income, lost household production and the personal costs of care.
Malpractice insurance costs amount to only 3.2 percent of the average physician's revenues.
While medical costs have increased by 113 percent since 1987, the total amount spent on medical malpractice insurance has increased by just 52 percent over that time—less than half of medical services inflation.
Five percent of doctors are responsible for 54 percent of malpractice in the U.S. Public Citizen’s analysis of the National Practitioner Data Bank, which covers malpractice judgments and settlements since September 1990, found that 5.1 percent of doctors (35,009) have paid two or more malpractice awards to patients. These doctors are
responsible for 54 percent of all payouts reported to the Data Bank. Of these, only 7.6 percent have ever been disciplined by state medical boards. Even physicians who have made 5 payouts have been disciplined at only a 13.3 percent rate.
American medical residents work among the highest—if not the highest—number of hours in the professional world. They work up to 120 hours a week, including 36-hour shifts for several weeks at a time. After 24 hours of wakefulness, cognitive function deteriorates to a level equivalent to having a 0.10% blood alcohol level. In other words, doctors who would be considered too unsafe to drive may still treat patients for 12 more hours.
Twelve years ago, Harvard researchers using a sample of hospitalizations in New York State compared medical records
to claims files. They found that only one in eight medical errors committed in hospitals results in a malpractice claim. Researchers replicating this study made similar findings in
Colorado and Utah.
Overall tort expenditures are less than the cost of medical injuries. Because so few medical injuries result in compensation to patients, the overall expenditures made for
medical liability are far below the projected injury costs. The Institute of Medicine estimated the costs of preventable medical injuries in hospitals alone at between $17 billion and $29 billion. The Utah Colorado Medical Practice study estimated it at $20 billion. By contrast, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners reports that the total amount spent on medical malpractice insurance in 2000 was $6.4 billion. This is at least three to five times less than the cost of malpractice to society.
There are over 6,000 doctors in the U.S. who have paid four or more malpractice claims, amounting to $6.5 billion.
Redacted records from the National Practitioner Data Bank demonstrate that lax discipline by medical boards allows questionable doctors to inflict repeated injuries on patients:
Physician Number 94358, licensed in New Jersey, settled or lost 33 medical malpractice suits involving improper diagnosis or treatment between 1988 and 1993, inflicting over
$400,000 in disability costs to his patients. This doctor has not been disciplined by authorities in New Jersey.
Physician Number 64625, licensed in Pennsylvania, paid 24 medical malpractice claims involving improper performance of surgery between 1989 and 2001. Damages to this doctor’s patients exceeded $370,000. This doctor has never been disciplined by Pennsylvania authorities.
Physician Number 37949, licensed in Texas, settled or lost 13 medical malpractice suits involving improper treatment or improper performance of surgery between 1990 and 1997. Two of the suits involved the same allegation—a foreign body left in the patient during surgery. Damages to this doctor’s patients exceeded $2 million. This doctor has never been disciplined by authorities in Texas.
It goes on and on in the article. . . A few bad docs screw everything up and state medical boards protect them instead of stripping them of their licenses.
- Aug 29, 2004
- 2,958
- 0
well that was a lot of reading and still unclear of the position being taken, but when you quote tort reform and go on to references of allstate auto insurance, well i for one find that no way relevant to medical malpractice. if im getting the jist of these posts , it looks like a possible defense for attorneys and the lawsuits, except for the whore attys. if i was in a jury and you were defending attys. i would question if you were a plant for the prosecution.
this is all just a laymans opinion, which i'd imagine jurys have a few.
ps when i think tort reform i dont think of a limit on recoveries, i think for one idea is to fine attys for bringing up garbage lawsuits, and fining whore lawyers and whore doctors. can you get any statistics on how much they cost the industry as well as court system?
this is all just a laymans opinion, which i'd imagine jurys have a few.
ps when i think tort reform i dont think of a limit on recoveries, i think for one idea is to fine attys for bringing up garbage lawsuits, and fining whore lawyers and whore doctors. can you get any statistics on how much they cost the industry as well as court system?
- Dec 26, 1999
- 19,774
- 0
Odd how Student Loans are part of the health care "problem". I guess just one of the many little pieces that got jammed in for the free ride to approval.
Having been in a accident with injuries to myself and family caused by another driver I have first hand experience with ther system of payment. Of course I settled the whole thing without a lawyer (I did get some free advice along the way from one that is a friend of a friend) and it seems both parties were satisfied with the final outcome even if it was significantly more than the original offer which was a joke. As an added bonue I didn't lose 40% or the settlement to a lawyer. Perhaps there should be reform for both health care AND the legal system fees that are charged.
Having been in a accident with injuries to myself and family caused by another driver I have first hand experience with ther system of payment. Of course I settled the whole thing without a lawyer (I did get some free advice along the way from one that is a friend of a friend) and it seems both parties were satisfied with the final outcome even if it was significantly more than the original offer which was a joke. As an added bonue I didn't lose 40% or the settlement to a lawyer. Perhaps there should be reform for both health care AND the legal system fees that are charged.
I's about money. How much the filthy rich elite can make/keep in their pockets. Anyone that believes our corrupt govt. has or has had, in the last 65 years, any interest in doing anything for it's constituency is a fool! :pissed: Ok, I have to stop now or I'll get myself in real trouble! :|
Similar Topics
