[rollei_list] Re: OT: Health Care Costs
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010 16:34:13 -0400
At 10:02 AM 3/21/2010, Eric Goldstein wrote:
Marc -
Basically you are accurate in saying that it is
insurance companies who have escalated health
care costs far above the rate of inflation over
the decades, and that cost containment is the
key to bringing affordability back into the US
health care system. They have done it because of
the failure of the so-called "free market," they
have done it via a fee-for-survices
reimbursement structure, and they have done it
by adding an additional 10-13+% to the cost of
health care via their administration and profit.
Where your argument goes astray is the
suggestion that tort reform is the answer. At
most, successful tort reform, if it could be
meaningfully achieved, would result in about a
2% reduction in health care costs, which won't
cut it no matter what your goal for the future
of health care. We need to find about 13% to get
us to a place where we can move forward by
insuring most every citizen, if that is the
goal, and about 8-10% to get us to future solvency under existing programs.
Eric
You did not read my original posting very carefully.
The culprit on cost containment was not the
insurance companies but the Big Bad Gummit, which
demanded the insurance companies pay and pay and
pay. It was only under Reagan that the Federal
Gummit finally was ordered to cut it out and to
allow the insurance companies to set their own
rates. That was when the docs found their
incomes being cut. Not the fault of the
companies at all -- totally the fault of Kennedy
and Johnson and Nixon and Ford and Jemmy Cahter.
And you may have been listening too much to Bill
O'Reilly. I am not speaking of HIS idea of Tort
Reform. I want to open the system to allow the
insurance companies to resolve minor medical
malpractice claims as they now resolve minor car-wreck cases.
Mrc
msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
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