Tort reform has effects beyond the actual courts and settlements. Hospitals have rules and doctors require additional expensive tests on patients for fear of being sued.
If you die or your loved one dies from taking a drug that the pharma company has already budgeted a class action lawsuit for, they deserve to have their ass sued. Tort reform limits the amount you can sue for. It punks people out of money that is granted by juries.
25% of the un-insured people in Texas are non-citizens. Most are not interested in insurance, or retirement plans for that matter. All they want is to make as much cash as they can to take back to their home country. In the event of a sickness or injury, the non-insured non-citizens simply go to a hospital emergency room. The hospitals end up writing those bills off as bad debts. The amount of uncompensated health care expenses hospitals incur nationwide, not just in Texas, is huge, and a part of the large immigration problem. Since Texas is on the border with Mexico, and the largest continental state, they have the most un-insured non-citizens who do not want insurance.
As usual, there are two sides to the story. We all pay higher prices for drugs , doctors, and health insurance because of litigation costs. You can't pretend the tort industry is some lilly white savior in all instances. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/t...-to-buy-a-democratic-majority/article/2555105
Deciding a direction would be good. What are the options? I'm going to pick on just one word out of your post. Workers. Did you intend that, or did you mean people? There's clearly a big difference. barfo
My 5y/o just had to have some major stuff done to her teeth. Since we don't have (or want) "dental insurance", we found a specialist in children's dentistry, put the 2800 on a credit card, and got a 20% "cash discount". Of that 2800, 900 was for 45 minutes of an anesthesiologist's time and skills. If we had the military dental insurance (Tricare, underwritten by Delta Dental and Metlife) it would be 96/mo. Amazingly enough, the cap it at $1300/yr (and another lifetime 1750 cap on orthodontics), and the cost shares range from 0% (diagnostics) to 20% (consultation) to 40% (anesthesia) to 50% (periodontal and other stuff). So in my daughter's case, even if we had insurance, we would have hit the cap and ended up paying more (and not having the cash discount) than just putting it on the card and getting miles for our next vacation. And that wouldn't have included the 5 years we've been paying without anyone going to the dentist for more than a checkup/cleaning.
My son has dental insurance and we teach him to brush and floss regularly. Because of his insurance he has regular checkups and regular cleanings. He is now 9 and has never had a cavity. Please don't get defensive about this, but what are you feeding your daughter? Why does she need so much dental work? Edit: also, his insurance doesn't have a cap. I've never even heard of a cap on dental insurance. What's that all about? You should be able to shop and get better insurance.
Not defensive at all....she was born 5 weeks premature and (from what I've been told) enamel is one of the later things "developed" in the womb. Many of the roots on her front teeth were abscessed and had not been found until this batch of x-rays. She had to have 5 baby teeth pulled. So, technically, she's never had a cavity, either. Checkups and cleanings are a minimal cost (I think we pay $60/yr for the kids). So for a 5yr old and 4yr old we've paid (up to now) about $350 in dental costs for the kids, and maybe that again for my wife. I get free checkups and cleanings from the Navy as part of having to stay deployable. So even with this "big item" we've paid $3500 in 5 years for family dentistry (it would've been about $700 with your child's/family's dental record). Which would've cost me $6000 had I been paying insurance premiums, which obtw would not have covered all of the 3100 of work that I "bought". Cost shares here....premiums are on a link at the top of that page. Since we're asking, how much do you pay for your family dentistry premiums? Your son can have regular checkups and cleanings without insurance, for about $100/yr--or 1 month's premiums.
thats my problem with all insurance. you are betting against yourself and in most cases it's illegal not to. I have a 1985 toyota pickup truck that cost approx $1300 when i bought it 8 years ago. I've paid it off at least 3 times in insurance payments. health insurance is a huge scam. they double sometimes triple prices when billing because they know the insurance companies will only pay a % but then you get stuck paying higher prices than if you just paid cash. health care is a joke. i watch people come to the ER twice daily for pain meds because they sell their prescriptions on the street and now need pain management. every EMS ride to the ER costs as much as my bi monthly pay check and that person doesnt have to pay their bill because legally the ER can't turn someone away. people get ambulance rides because they have a cold rather than eating some chicken noodle soup and going to sleep. not paying your bill doesnt even hurt your credit. credit companies look and see it's for health care and just lol.
Use to date a girl that is/was a director of benefits at a certain local company here in the Metro area. You wouldn't believe the type of fraud and boundary breaking that happens in the medical field. Between the health insurance companies, the doctors, AND the employee fraud, it's a complete fucking sham.
OK, due to my age, I am on the govt. run Medicare insurance program. I am very fortunate to have a doctor that actually cares more about his patient’s health than making money. He spends as much time as needed with each patient, and never overbooks to make people have long waits. The hardest part of my doctor's job appears to be interpreting all of the rules and restrictions Medicare places on patient treatment. At my last visit about two weeks ago, he spent more time on the phone trying to understand what was covered, and when it is covered than he did treating me. He had to make three phone calls before he “maybe understood” the answers to his questions. On one specific procedure, he decided that I probably was not covered for one more year, which we both agreed was crazy. He said he was going ahead with that part of the exam at no charge to me. He wanted to be sure about something and not gamble with my health due to stupid rules made by the Govt.. Not only is understanding what is covered and when very confusing, how you are processed through the system can also affect IF Medicare pays. Example: Staying overnight in a hospital does not automatically mean Medicare pays the expenses of an overnight hospital stay, even if they are covered. It boils down to if you where formally admitted by the hospital, a bureaucratic procedure. You can spend the night in a hospital and still be considered an outpatient, not an inpatient by how the admission form was worded. You have no way of knowing if you are listed as an inpatient or outpatient, unless you ask. Which is crazy. The Medicare system does not make sense to me or my doctor. There are way too many loopholes and pit falls.
