Americans Want More Health Care Investment by Government

[Nym90]

I agree that government should spend more on health care. Obviously we have to be careful not to create a run away bureauracy, but something modelled on the Canadian or UK systems would work well in my opinion. Universal coverage should be the eventual goal.

[Nym90]

Good points Angus. I'm not as knowledgeable of the health care issue as I am on most other domestic issues so I appreciate this thread.

I agree that over regulation is a definite problem. To that extent, government regulation should be pared down. I do feel that the FDA is overly cautious about approving new medicines.

However, the tremendous expense to employers of providing health care is a responsibility which I think can and should be shifted more to the government. I feel a single payer plan would be the best choice.

This wouldn't increase bureaucracy as far as I can see; the government would simply become an insurance company, essentially. Private insurers have plenty of bureacracy of their own which greatly increases costs. Obviously private insurance would still exist as an option, and would likely provide greater coverage than the public system would.

It is easy to deceive the public into thinking that universal health care will mean government control of hospitals and the like, but I don't see any reason why this would be necessary or desireable.

[Nym90]

angus, you're very right to point out the legal angle to this problem.

Our ailing and dysfunctional legal system is being used as a means of legalized extortion to milk the health care system of huge amounts of money that go into the pockets of ambulance-chasing lawyers.

A health care system with the government as the sole payer will not change this.  Taxpayers will simply assume billions of dollars of illegitimate legal liabilities directly, rather than indirectly as is currently the case.

Until the legal system is fixed, there is no point in putting through any type of real reform, because the current legal system is a dealbreaker as far as the success of any reform is concerned.

I agree that the lawyers are a big part of the problem. Not nearly as much as the HMOs though.

Medical malpractice reform is a double edged sword. How do we cut out the frivolous lawsuits, while keeping the many legitimate ones? For example, my father is currently involved in a case in which misdiagnosis and mistreatment (actually, no treatment at all) cost him the use of both of his legs. What is that worth to a person? If someone were willing to pay you 10 million dollars but the condition was that you'd be paralyzed from the middle of the chest down for the rest of your life, would you take the deal? If the answer is no, then it can't really be argued that it's an exorbinantly high amount of money.

In our case, there weren't any ambulance chasing lawyers coming to my father, he went to them. Obviously there are always leeches who are looking to make a quick buck, but lawyers are part of the adversarial part of the legal system. They make the case, and juries decide the ultimate outcome. It seems as though the juries should be blamed just as much as anyone else, if not more, if malpractice awards are too high.

[Nym90]

I do blame the juries.  But the system seems to pre-ordain that bad juries will be chosen.  And that the same case heard in different jurisdictions will yield completely different results.

Your dad's story is a very sad one, and not the only one I am sure.  Still, the legal system has to find a better way, other than relying on pools of people in which anyone who shows any sign of brain wave activity is automatically eliminated, in order to separate the legitimate from the illegitimate cases.

Agreed. There is no simple solution. My point was simply that blaming only lawyers is simplistic at best and deceptive at worst.

The reality is that anyone with a highly marketable and rare skill is going to charge an arm and a leg for their services, whether it be a doctor, a lawyer, or a professional athlete, or any other profession. Someone always has to pay the bill, and whether it's through the private sector or the public sector, it still all comes back to the consumer in the end.

[Nym90]

I do blame the juries.  But the system seems to pre-ordain that bad juries will be chosen.  And that the same case heard in different jurisdictions will yield completely different results.

Your dad's story is a very sad one, and not the only one I am sure.  Still, the legal system has to find a better way, other than relying on pools of people in which anyone who shows any sign of brain wave activity is automatically eliminated, in order to separate the legitimate from the illegitimate cases.

Agreed. There is no simple solution. My point was simply that blaming only lawyers is simplistic at best and deceptive at worst.

The reality is that anyone with a highly marketable and rare skill is going to charge an arm and a leg for their services, whether it be a doctor, a lawyer, or a professional athlete, or any other profession. Someone always has to pay the bill, and whether it's through the private sector or the public sector, it still all comes back to the consumer in the end.

It's not right to blame only lawyers.  That is true.

But it's also true that lawyers have a lot to do with what is wrong with the legal system.

Still, lawyers are like out of control children.  While they are bad and responsible for their own behavior, it is still a failure of the parents who allow that behavior to continue.  We have to find some type of mechanism to get rid of the frivolous lawsuits to the greatest extent possible, other than taking up years of time in the system to put them in front of brain-damaged juries who are incapable of comprehending the decisions they are making.

Agreed. Maybe something akin to the grand jury system for criminal cases? I don't know if that would work effectively but some sort of a preliminary screening process would be helpful.

I know that in my dad's case, the suit is going to be reviewed by a panel of 3 attorneys (I don't really know anything about their backgrounds or how they are chosen) and they recommend a settlement amount. If one of the parties agrees to the amount but the other doesn't, and the case goes to trial and the one who didn't accept the recommended amount doesn't get at least a 10 percent improvement upon the recommended amount, they have to pay the legal fees of the other side.

In addition, the lawyer in his case is paid strictly on a commission basis. He gets a third of the total final amount. That would seem to be a deterrent to the most frivilous cases, as a case that is lost ends up earning the lawyer nothing. In addition, I know that the insurance company has to be reimbursed for any and all expenses they have paid so far out of the final settlement amount. So that ends up reducing the amount that the person actually gets from what otherwise might be a more impressive total.

[Nym90]

I would think, in assessing the effects of a universal system, one would have to study how well it has (or hasn't, as the case may be) worked in other countries that have it. The United States is one of the few first world countries to not have some system of unviersal coverage. What have the effects been in places like Canada or the UK? What are some of the key differences in those countries that might make a universal coverage system work better or worse there than it does here?

[Nym90]

I would think, in assessing the effects of a universal system, one would have to study how well it has (or hasn't, as the case may be) worked in other countries that have it. The United States is one of the few first world countries to not have some system of unviersal coverage. What have the effects been in places like Canada or the UK? What are some of the key differences in those countries that might make a universal coverage system work better or worse there than it does here?

Well, we know that people in Canada who really need serious medical care and can afford to pay for it come to the US for it.  That should tell you something.

And the Canadians, for various reasons [smaller population, less diversity], have generally gotten BETTER results from government programs than we have.

I agree that the US has the best health care in the world for those who can afford it.

Americans frequently go to Canada to buy prescription drugs due to their cheaper cost. Both systems have their pros and cons.

[Nym90]

Good point, John. The best long term solution is to emphasize and promote prevention, rather than focusing solely on cure.