Re: Tort Reform

On Oct 11, 1:08 pm, El Castor <No_...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:52:49 -0700 (PDT), Graham <garekm...@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:





On Oct 10, 1:43 am, Matthew Scott <sco...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
The Washington Post reports that the CBO Says that tort reform Could Save $54 Billion.

Congressional budget analysts said Friday that lawmakers could save as much as $54 billion over the next decade by imposing an array of new limits on medical malpractice lawsuits -- 10 times more than previously estimated. New research shows that legal reforms would not only lower malpractice insurance premiums for medical providers, but also would spur providers to save money by ordering fewer tests and procedures aimed primarily at defending their decisions in court, Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, wrote in a letter to  Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).

The CBO report lends credence to Republican arguments that substantive limits on malpractice lawsuits will reduce health-care costs. However, President Obama opposes one of the chief proposed changes the CBO studied, caps on jury awards, and analysts give the measures little chance of passage.

"These numbers show that this problem deserves more than lip service from policy-makers," Hatch said in a statement. "Unfortunately, up to now, that has been all the President and his Democratic allies in Congress have been willing to provide."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/09/AR200....

In Canada, medical malpractice suits are almost non-existant, and
that's not good either because the Canadian Medical Association (more
or less the Doctors union) has a lot of influence.

Canadian society is far less litigatious than the USA to begin with,
but not having sufficient and credible malpractice suits can be
equally bad as having far too many.     I understand that malpractice
insurance for doctors in the US can be enormous, which adds to the
over all cost of health care.

As in the USA, Doctors in Canada are private practitioners, they don't
work for the government.

Is it possible to buy healthcare insurance in Canada which would, for
instance, guarantee timely access to an MRI?


Timely access for critical needs is guaranteed under the Provincial
health care plans. And yes, there is insurance that can get you to a
private clinic as well, or you can pay a small fee.

I could have moved my recent colonoscopy up by three months if I paid
my specialist an extra $40. He has his own clinic. But because a
colonoscopy is every 5 years, there is no reason to hurry.

I had a recent Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging work up booked, and
I had an appointment the next day.

There was no bill for it.

The shortage of MRI technicians has been put to the front of the
priority list, it has little to do with a shortage of machines.


One thing that I see from Americans is that it's easy to criticize
Canada's health care waiting times, mainly because there are loads of
data and benchmarks. No such data and benchmarks exist in the US
private health care system. Wait times where I live in Toronto are
non-existant because Toronto has more hospitals than most cities in
North America, Europe or Asia.

However, if you live in Ditchwater North Ontario, you will probably
have the same wait times as someone living in Ditchwater North
Dakota. However, your HMO system doesn't provide statistics like
ours does.

.

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