America is the land of litigation. A tort lawyer’s paradise. In America, you can sue anyone for just about anything. This has affected the cost of America’s health care, and has demoralized the medical profession. In fact, abusive tort litigation has added billions of dollars to health care costs, both directly, through settlements and high malpractice insurance rates, and indirectly, through the practice of “defensive medicine” to avoid litigation. For health care reform to be successful in bending the cost curve and improving quality of care, policymakers, particularly at the …
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esQTK-oSZXw[/youtube] In 2004 Governor Barbour passed comprehensive tort reform legislation in Mississippi. The state’s notorious reputation for “jackpot justice” has never recovered. In a recent op-ed Barbour wrote: The number of medical liability lawsuits against Mississippi doctors fell almost ninety percent one year after tort reform went into effect. Doctors have quit leaving the state and limiting their practices to avoid lawsuit abuse. Those dramatic results should be replicated on the national level, said Governor Barbour at the Heritage Foundation last week:
Great catch by The Weekly Standard‘s Stephen F. Hayes: There are credible estimates that serious tort reform could save the country between $100 and $200 billion annually in wasteful spending, as doctors practice defensive medicine to preempt lawsuits. … Now Obama says he’s going to study the issue. “I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today,” he said. That would be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, whose resume includes eight years as director of the Kansas Trial Lawyers …
In last month’s Washington Post, Common Good chairman Philip Howard wrote: Health-care reform is bogged down because none of the bills before Congress deals with the staggering waste of the current system, estimated to be $700 billion to $1 trillion annually. The waste flows from a culture of health care in which every incentive is to do more — that’s how doctors make money and that’s how they protect themselves from lawsuits. Yet the congressional leadership has slammed the door on solutions to the one driver of waste that is …
Rep. Dave Camp came to Heritage’s weekly bloggers briefing today. He made specific recommendations for health care reform that leaves the individual in charge and actually reduces costs without raising taxes. “80% of Americans have health care, and they don’t want to see it change in a fundamental way,” he said, adding that reform should include 3 things “that get the cost out of health care.” Common-sense liability reform that reduces doctors’ need to practice defensive medicine. Regulatory reform, so small businesses can group together in insurance pools. Strong anti-fraud provisions.
Tort lawyers are about to get another big payoff from Congress and the Obama administration for the hundreds of millions of dollars they contributed to candidates in the last election cycle (over 75% of which went to Democrats). If it reconciles the differing versions of the so-called Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009 that the House and Senate passed (which could happen yet today), Congress will finalize amendments to the federal False Claims Act that will hurt our economy but make the trial lawyers very happy indeed.
