# No CLASS Obama! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 15, 2011, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769 "2011-10-15T23:32:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/141 "2011-10-19T12:01:57Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > Read [this](http://www.aaos.org/news/aaosnow/dec10/advocacy2.asp) > > Then read [this](http://advance.uconn.edu/2009/090223/09022302.htm) > > Then read [this, from the lefty whackjobs at the HuffPo](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johnny-benjamin/healthcare-reform-and-def_b_243537.html). > > A little more than 1% (to your credit, a number I did find in one specific cite in a Google search.. not sure which one it was, might have been [wehateAmerica.com](http://wehateAmerica.com)…) A little more than 1%, perhaps, but not up the 20% you appear to have claimed in an earlier post. The authors in the Huffington Post article purportedly derive the $2,000 per year figure from a paper by Kessler and McClellan (1996), which they summarize: > [@](#): > > Kessler and McClellan found that liability reforms could reduce defensive medicine practices. This led to a 5.3% reduction in medical expenditures for acute myocardial infarction patients and a 9.0% reduction for ischemia patients without any effect on mortality or medical complications. States with capping laws had average per capita health expenditure levels that were 3.4% lower than in states without such laws. Considerably lower than 20%. Your first link (American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons) claims that > [@](#): > > [l]iability reform has been estimated to result in anywhere from a 5 percent to a 34 percent reduction in medical expenditures by reducing defensive medicine practices , but they make no citations. For what it’s worth, measurement of the extent to which tort reform may reduce costs remains somewhat controversial, Kessler and McClellan notwithstanding. The chapter on liability in the Handbook of Health Economics (2000) puts it this way: > [@](#): > > the extreme criticisms of the malpractice system are exaggerated. Malpractice premiums are less than 1 percent of total health care costs. […] The limited empirical evidence of provider response to liability and the deterrent effect of claims suggests - but cannot prove - that the net benefits of the malpractice system may plausibly be positive. Nevertheless, reforms designed to reduce inappropriate compensation and deter excessive litigation and defensive practice would make the system more cost-effective. A more recent study (Mello, Chandra, Gawande, and Studdert [2010]) finds that > [@](#): > > [o]verall annual medical liability system costs, including defensive medicine, are estimated to be $55.6 billion in 2008 dollars, or 2.4 percent of total health care spending[.] It’s a lot, but not enough (IMO) to justify the incommensurate level of attention given to the issue of tort reform. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/142 "2011-10-19T21:10:10Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > Roll your eyes if you want. It’s the truth. you must be a hoot at parties. ---
**Author:** ![gravitycrash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gravitycrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gravitycrash)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2011, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/143 "2011-10-19T23:19:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > A great many legislators have admitted (even bragged) that they did not do due diligence on this legislation, but it can’t have been because it was too rushed, because it wasn’t. Rather, those legislators’ lack of due diligence is just plain their own fault. Yeah but the important thing is that it passed, who cares about the details. I’ll probably be losing my health insurance provided by the company I work for at the end of the year because of those details. Who needs due diligence when we have compassion coming out of our asses. That’s okay though, as long as all of those poor folks without insurance are taken care of, I don’t mind hunting for a new plan which undoubtedly will cost me considerably more than the poor folks will pay because I make more you see. It’s only fair. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/144 "2011-10-20T01:43:40Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > A little more than 1%, perhaps, but not up the 20% you appear to have claimed in an earlier post.m. Fair enough, **Randroid**. I saw other cites between 5% and 9% cost of defensive medicine (some derived from the Kessler-McClellan studies, some from elsewhere). So let’s use 5%, the low end of that spectrum. US Health care costs in 2008, the last year I could find figures for, was over [$2.3 Trillion](http://www.kaiseredu.org/Issue-Modules/US-Health-Care-Costs/Background-Brief.aspx), according to Kaiser. Surely that’s gone up since then. And as any reasonable person knows, it’s sure to rise even more given Obamacare’s lack of an appetite suppressant mechanism. But using those very conservative numbers, I see the potential was there to avoid $115 billion in defensive spending. That’s a lot of money. And this president, Mr Short Bus Campaigner and our Telepromptr-in-chief, didn’t do any of that because he didn’t want to offend his Trial Lawyer sugar daddies. And that’s the guy most of this board will be voting for. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/145 "2011-10-20T04:38:53Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > But using those very conservative numbers, I see the potential was there to avoid $115 billion in defensive spending. That’s a lot of money. To be perfectly straight about it I feel that even 5% is perhaps rather higher than the data suggests. And note further that such extrapolations don’t account for general equilibrium effects — in the final accounting, lowering costs from defensive medicine could plausibly raise medical expenditures along other vectors. (Health care is at least somewhat price sensitive.) Even taking at face value a possible across-the-board 5% reduction in health care expenditures, however, (1) the savings are _comparatively_ small and (2) political reality may make them quite difficult to achieve. In the grand scheme of things tort reform simply isn’t that big a problem, and achieving it won’t fix the health care system. > [@](#): > > And this president, Mr Short Bus Campaigner and our Telepromptr-in-chief, didn’t do any of that because he didn’t want to offend his Trial Lawyer sugar daddies. Okay. I have attempted to bring facts to this discussion; if you would like me — and possibly other disinterested parties — to continue doing so, then I would suggest a tonal shift. I do not care to spend time parsing content out of partisan swipes. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/146 "2011-10-20T12:39:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > A great many legislators have admitted (even bragged) that they did not do due diligence on this legislation, but it can’t have been because it was too rushed, because it wasn’t. Rather, those legislators’ lack of due diligence is just plain their own fault. Example: [Sen. James Inhofe, R-OK](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/27/inhofe-ill-vote-against-r_n_270636.html): “I don’t have to read it, or know what’s in it. I’m going to oppose it anyways”. Which, of course, to the likes of **Magiver** , is the DemoncRat Party’s fault. Now, where’s that “Repeal and replace” stuff the GOP promised in the last election? There was a token, even condescending, attempt at repeal, but there’s been no action at all to pass or even define a health care bill that the GOP can pass and stand behind to the public. Nothing at all, and it would have been foolish to expect any, of course. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769.md?page=7)