(March 23, 2017 at 10:51 am)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:(March 22, 2017 at 12:09 pm)popeyespappy Wrote: It can't be done without lowering costs. Removing profit margins from the equation wouldn't be enough by itself to make it workable either so we have to find other areas to reduce costs. I'm open to suggestions on how to do that...
A big driver for medical costs here in America are malpractice insurance premiums driven by lawsuits. I don't know how much, by percentage, that might be, but tort reform could probably help cap our costs.
We can talk about big pharma after that.
That's a myth, driven by lawyers and big business.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2...5e70902ff5
Quote:A new study reveals that the cost of medical malpractice in the United States is running at about $55.6 billion a year - $45.6 billion of which is spent on defensive medicine practiced by physicians seeking to stay clear of lawsuits.And the majority of that is on "defensive medicine", healthcare and testing "done only for the purpose of avoiding lawsuits". But even if you got rid of all of that, it would barely dent the costs of medical care.
The amount comprises 2.4% of the nation’s total health care expenditure.
As for the cost of malpractice insurance, it's not terribly high for doctors either.
http://truecostofhealthcare.net/malpractice/
And tort reform doesn't have a terribly large affect on the outcome of malpractice suits. Medical malpractice costs have been dropping throughout the US, and tort reform is not the driving factor of that reduction, though it has had some effect. All it does is limit the amount of money legitimate victims can receive, while protecting mostly large corporations (like insurers, not the individual doctors).
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― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead