| User Blox 4 |
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Barack Obama  |
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Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.
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Wed Aug 13, 2008 at 13:13:07 PM MST
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| I saw the news that Roy Brown promises to convene a bipartisan commission to address the cost of health care for Montanans. Not a terrible idea; but the usual tactics of a politico, eh? We don't need commissions, we need affordable, universal health care.
Anyhow. Here's the paragraph from the report I want to talk about, emphasis mine:
Brown cited the skyrocketing cost of health insurance, the growing cost of malpractice insurance for health care providers and the increasing costs of keeping hospital doors open in Montana.
The highlighted portion - the "worry" over malpractice insurance - is often Republican code-speak for tort reform, and a desire to legislate caps on malpractice settlements. The theory is that caps mean lower malpractice insurance rates, which leads to lower health care and coverage costs.
Of course, in reality, there's no such correlation. |
| Jay Stevens :: The myth of malpractice caps |
Take this 2004 Consumer Affairs report (emphasis, again, mine):
Do caps or medical malpractice damage awards hold down doctors' liability insurance premiums? The nation's largest medical malpractice insurer says they don't.
GE Medical Protective's finding was made in a regulatory filing with the Texas Deparment of Insurance (TDI), in a document submitted by GE to explain why the insurer planned to raise physicians' premiums 19% a mere six months after Texas enacted caps on medical malpractice awards....
According to the Medical Protective filing: "Non-economic damages are a small percentage of total losses paid. Capping non-economic damages will show loss savings of 1.0%."
The company also notes that a provision in the Texas law allowing for periodic payments of awards would provide a savings of only 1.1%. The insurer did not even provide its doctors that relief and eventually imposed a rate hike on its physician policyholders.
Got that? Savings is about 1% -- pocketed by the insurer - which apparently is not only not enough to offer relief to doctors (and thereby patients), it's cause to jack up rates another nineteen percent!
Worse yet, according to the Drum Major Institute, the Texas malpractice cap has not passed on savings to consumers, results in lower quality care for Texas patients, and is a disincentive for attorneys to take on malpractice cases. Worse care...harder to sue bad doctors...all for the same, high, high price!
Let's face it, folks. The insurance industry is the main party to blame for the high cost of health insurance. Do they really need another handout, in the form of malpractice caps?
I've got a funny feeling that's the kind of health care "reform" Roy Brown and the Montana Republicans are going to advocate. |
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