6 Comments

I sometimes wonder how much insurance creates the problem of these insane awards and not fighting bad claims. Malpractice? A deductible expense. Sue your doctor? It’s not like he’ll be paying. Looks like we’ll find out.

Bob

Want to control malpractice. Eliminate the insurance. Then make it slander to sue someone and lose. That stops it in its tracks.

Some of us felt that, among the many weaknesses of Obamacare, was its lack of provision for medical liability reform. This article shows why it’s important. These hospitals are in poor areas, with a high Medicaid load and lots of patients with no insurance at all. They are struggling to just get by. Yet they pay the same rates as the more prosperous hospitals for drugs, supplies, equipment, salaries, etc. Little wonder there’s nothing left over for malpractice insurance or judgments. And now our Dear Leader wants to dump 30,000,000 more people onto the already overburdened Medicaid hospitals with no provision at all to take care of them. So the hospitals dump their malpractice insurance and cut money-losing services such as obstetrics. Then throw in a few large adverse verdicts, and the hospitals go bankrupt or close down. But what happens to their patients? Better not to ask.

A tax could be levied on “jackpot” verdicts (“jackpot” levels to be pre-defined for various sorts of claims), and applied toward “reasonable and basic” (also pre-defined) claims by patients at under-insured institutions.

After subtracting the lawyer’s cut, of course.

Bob

I seem to remember that one reason Hospital have to accept anyone was that to not do so would mean sacrificing MA/MC reimbursements.

At what point does it become more cost effective to ONLY admit people with private insurance or the ability to pay for themselves?