"Health Court" instead of a jury of your peers . . . hate the idea. It's like filing a complaint with the internal affairs division of the police department.
It reduces the beta of the settlements. I think it's a good idea. These juries would hear only malpractice suits, and would, in essence become experts on some complex issues.
I don't understand, are you saying the law firm should be responsible for the costs of the other side if they lose . . . because I've never seen that proposed before. Should the doctor pay for the plaitiffs costs if the prevail?
Who pays these health court people? As long as there are no caps and these health court people are really unbiased, it could work. But I don't think the concept (if doctor was negligent) is that complex of an issue and a jury is better than having to appeal to some specialized health court who I fear would have an agenda.
I don't see how that would be implemented in the US . . . but as long as both sides were held to the same standard, that is a start. It might just stop those insurance companies to stop fucking around with legit claims.
We do. It would just become a specialized branch of the judiciary. It wouldn't result in additional costs, it would just funnel malpractice cases to a specific court.
It's a tough deal. Of course it stops frivilous lawsuits, but it also keeps many worthy claims from being pursued. Could you imagine risking a few million dollars in defendant attorney fees to pursue a claim? I'm not sure I would.
That's a very good question, and if you find the answer let me know. But I think we can all agree that saving a half-a-percent, on anything, is not a game-changer. barfo
I'm OK with specialized juries . . . I'm not OK with an internal department that will review appeals to decide if they have merit.
The problem I have with all of thees analogy is it is assuming it is only the plaintiffs that are the problem. If I'm a big insurance company looking at a legit million dollar lawsuit, why wouldn't I drag the whole process out for a couple of years while earning interest on the money and maybe even cause the plaintiff enough stress in their lives to settle for a lot less ($250,000) just so they can pay their bills and get on with their life.
I'm not so sure. If you told me the most savings we could hope for was 1%, then a half-a-percent savings from a known source would be significant. $11billion in savings should be able to provide decent healthcare coverage to 11 million people. That is already half of the additional insured numbers some of these bills are targeting, with no cost to tax payers. Seems significant to me.
This is a case where statistics can be deceiving. In behavorial economics, one learns if you wish to minimize the impact of figures, with large numbers use percentages, with small numbers use amounts. In other words, $11B is much more impressive than 0.5%. If you were buying a $0.25 pencil instead of a $0.20 pencil, you would say $0.05 rather than 20%.
Well, it would be a significant fraction of the available savings. But it isn't going to make the difference on whether it is affordable or not. If you can't afford the stated price, and the most savings on a purchase that you can hope for is 1%, then you have to stop worrying about cost cutting and start thinking of alternatives. I think your math must be off. If we can insure 11 million for 11 billion, then we can insure 300 million for 300 billion. Yet current spending (for less than 300 billion served) is apparently 11 billion/0.005 = 2.2 trillion. barfo
Care to link to the last time a GOP member tried to put a tort reform amendment on the health care bill?
Well, I agree with that, and $11B is a lot of dollars. But it is still true that it is only a half-a-percent. And if you can't afford 100%, you probably can't afford 99.5%. Or if you want to see that in big numbers, if you can't afford to pay $2,200,000,000,000, you probably can't afford $2,189,000,000,000 either. barfo
I don't think the American people can afford the government they want. Polls show that we don't want a public takeover of the healthcare system, so what makes anyone think we can afford a government we don't want?
11 billion / 1000 = 11 million. Are you denying that decent healthcare insurance can be purchased for $1000 / year?
No, I'm not denying that. I don't in fact know whether it can or not. Although, it appears that unless I'm making a math error, my employer is paying $6000/year for my insurance. I'm saying that according to the CBO, we as a country spend far more than $1000 per capita on heathcare. barfo
