# Al Gore’s Health Care Plan on NPR **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2002, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950 "2002-11-21T15:34:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/21 "2002-11-21T21:24:16Z")
Gee, **spoke-** , with all the big bad insurance people following the money, I can’t imagine what the rest of us do. We would never be greedy. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/22 "2002-11-21T21:38:10Z")
Not quite so _deceptively_, I should hope. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/23 "2002-11-21T21:56:36Z")
Oh, no, we want universal health care out of the goodness of our hearts. There is no selfish motive present at all. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/24 "2002-11-21T22:04:45Z")
There is no _deception_ in wanting that. There is deception in the insurance lobby’s game. That’s my point. Pursuing your self-interest is one thing. Lying to pursue your self-interest is another. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/25 "2002-11-21T22:20:29Z")
Like: “no one will have to pay for health care”? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/26 "2002-11-21T22:21:41Z")
Like: it is a _right_ to have health care? ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/27 "2002-11-21T22:28:46Z")
Sure, if you’ve acquired it peacefully and honestly. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/28 "2002-11-21T22:48:43Z")
I see your quotation marks, **erislover**. Who are you quoting, pray tell? And more to the point, do you mean to imply that we should ignore the deceptions of the insurance industry in their attempts to defeat universal health care and to promote restrictions on patients’ rights? Do you mean to say that we should ignore the fact that they have invented a “malpractice crisis” out of whole cloth to promote their legislative agenda? What are you saying, exactly? ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/29 "2002-11-21T22:59:37Z")
I don’t mean to imply that at all, except I do not understand what you mean by “patients’ rights”, so maybe I did mean to imply it. But I don’t propose we ignore anything, so maybe it doesn’t matter what that term is supposed to mean. I wasn’t quoting anyone here. I’m sorry, I forgot that the rest of the world I interact with isn’t available in this thread, so no one has ever said that. I withdraw it. Yes, everything would be cheaper if people didn’t make a profit on it. I’ll concede that in plain English. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/30 "2002-11-21T23:11:28Z")
By “patients’ rights,” I mean the right of a patient to recover damages which flow from the negligent act of a physician. The euphemistically-titled (dare I say _deceptively_-titled) “tort reform” espoused by the insurance lobby is designed to restrict those rights. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2002, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/31 "2002-11-21T23:49:56Z")
**spoke-** - Under a single, government run system, would patients be allowed to sue the government to recover damages? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Tejota](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Tejota](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tejota)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/32 "2002-11-22T00:07:03Z")
Single payer doesn’t (necessarily) change that because the health _providing_ industry stays in private hands. One doesn’t sue his insurance company when the doctor cuts off the wrong foot. One sues the doctor. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/33 "2002-11-22T00:21:48Z")
And of course, the doctor would carry malpractice insurance. ---
**Author:** ![ScoobyTX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@ScoobyTX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScoobyTX)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/34 "2002-11-22T00:50:52Z")
Which is becoming more and more expensive- not so much for low risk practices like GPs, but for OB/GYNs & surgeons, it can run into 6 figures per year. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/35 "2002-11-22T01:24:22Z")
I don’t doubt that malpractice insurance is becoming more expensive, even drastically so. The question is _why_? Are the rates increaing in response to a real explosion in malpractice judgments? (Doesn’t seem to be supported by statistics; see the citations in my earlier link.) Or is the insurance industry artificially inflating premiums? ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/36 "2002-11-22T02:43:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElJeffe \* > This can provide some useful insight, but not as much as you may think. Without accounting for such factors as genetic makeup of the population, geography, population density, and other things, such data isn’t particularly useful. I suppose this is your way of saying that you want to ignore facts like the U.S. spending much more on health care as a percent of GDP than Canada and other nations with single payer systems do and yet is still performing worse on lots of international health outcome measures ([http://www.cmwf.org/fellowships/anderson\_intrntl\_healthcare\_255bn.asp](http://www.cmwf.org/fellowships/anderson_intrntl_healthcare_255bn.asp)): > [@](#): > > The United States spends more on health care and fares worse on health outcomes than most industrialized nations. Gerard Anderson, in his article “In Search of Value: An International Comparison of Cost, Access, and Outcomes,” published in the November/December issue of Health Affairs, uses data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to compare the performance of the U.S. health care system with that of other industrialized countries. > > […] > > Anderson concludes that while the United States appears to be comparable to the other G7 countries in terms of access to physicians, in-patient hospital services, and pharmaceuticals, it ranks frequently in the bottom quarter on health outcome indicators such as life expectancy and infant morality. > > Facts and Figures > > - The U.S. infant mortality rate in 1995 was 8 per 1,000 live births, ranking it 23rd out of 29 countries. > > - The United States is tied with New Zealand in 20th place for life expectancy for women, and is 21st in terms of life expectancy for men. Instead, I guess we should just focus on what we are told these other nation’s health care systems are like from conservative groups and the insurance company lobbyist. ---
**Author:** ![december](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@december](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/december)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/37 "2002-11-22T02:46:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spoke- \* > \*\*I don’t doubt that malpractice insurance is becoming more expensive, even drastically so. The question is _why_? > > Are the rates increaing in response to a real explosion in malpractice judgments? (Doesn’t seem to be supported by statistics; see the citations in my earlier link.) > > Or is the insurance industry artificially inflating premiums? \*\* St. Paul Insurance, the company I just retired from, was the leading medical malpractice company in America. Last year, they simply quit the business. Their top management decided that they had been losing large amounts of money for years, and that there was no hope of future profits. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/38 "2002-11-22T15:34:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Instead, I guess we should just focus on what we are told these other nation’s health care systems are like from conservative groups and the insurance company lobbyist. But these gross measures do not adequately examine other factors, including the average heavier immigration, cultural differences (too many Americans on bad food leads to much of the shortened life span) and so forth. In other words, this may, I I suspect, does not have anything to do with the quality of the American health care system. Another thing to consider is the long-term impact opn science and progress. Buying ourselves universal care now may mean a huge slowdown in technological advance. The more money in the game, the more people are willing to do to get it. Coming up with new treatments and such is a good way to do it. Plus Europe and some other nations are effectively stealing American money by limiting drug prices. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/39 "2002-11-22T15:49:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by december \* > \*\*St. Paul Insurance, the company I just retired from, was the leading medical malpractice company in America. Last year, they simply quit the business. Their top management decided that they had been losing large amounts of money for years, and that there was no hope of future profits. \*\* Well, that _could_ be the result of an increase in malpractice verdicts, or it could be the result of bad underwriting decisions and bad management. So it doesn’t really answer the question. The question is: Is there any hard evidence of a “malpractice crisis,” that is, a radical increase in malpractice verdicts. I haven’t seen any such evidence (and I’ve looked), but I’m keeping an open mind. Let’s see some underlying statistics which prove the existence of a “crisis,” if anyone has such stats. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2002, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950/40 "2002-11-22T15:51:23Z")
I didn’t know all lawyers worked for free until there was a verdict. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/al-gore-s-health-care-plan-on-npr/137950.md?page=3)