Who told you torts were a major factor in health care costs?
http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/29/9/1569.abstract
2.4% is not “major”, especially when you consider that many torts are justifiable and represent real malpractice and suffering by patients. “Tort reform” is a lie ginned up by the insurance industry.
Cite?
Considering death due to medical error is among the leading cause of deaths in the US, perhaps that should be addressed before limiting the legal recourse available to patients. Not to mention, the US pretty much leads the OECD nations with the highest rate of ‘Deaths Due to Surgical or Medical Mishaps’. (2004)
Overtreatment due to ‘Defensive Medicine’? I don’t think so, more and more research is linking US overtreatment to ‘Induced Demand’. Which is among the many drivers of US healthcare expenditures.
Didn’t Texas try (and fail) to reduce medical costs with tort reform?
Given all the madness surrounding the GOP sabotage efforts towards the ACA over the past few days, I think that it’s safe to say that now - with less than three months before tangible widespread ACA benefits begin to kick in - the GOP is officially in balls-to-the-wall panic mode. As soon as you have several million more people with health insurance thanks to this law, the dynamics of the ACA are going to change forever in the Dems favor.
All that said, here’s the latest dispatch from the batshit insane GOP bubble:
Newest rounds of GOP ACA assaults inbound
Because all of those attacks worked so well in last year’s election.:smack: From the article:
“We’re trying to make it socially acceptable to skip the exchange,” said Dean Clancy, vice president for public policy at FreedomWorks, which boasts 6 million supporters. The group is designing a symbolic “Obamacare card” that college students can burn during campus protests.
I can’t even begin to articulate how fucking asinine this latest ploy even is.
I’m looking forward to hearing how the people sabotaged Obamacare by not signing up.
As for young people burning Obamacare cards, how is it any more asinine than burning draft cards? Basically the law is trying to draft young people to pay for older peoples’ health care. It’s their patriotic duty, dontcha know?
The draft card was an actual government document that had an actual purpose. The “Obamacare card” is entirely fictitious. That’s how.
Oh, and until and unless we are willing to let people die on the streets we are going to pay for healthcare one way or another. Higher premiums and co-pays for those with insurance, higher charges at hospital who have to make up for the cost of care given to the uninsured, higher taxes for working Americans. Anybody here not willing to pay an additional 10% or more for fast food if you didn’t have to pay (or your employer in lieu of higher salary) for health insurance? Maybe 10% isn’t enough or other non-essential items might have to be taxed as well, but with one of the best plans available, I’m still out-of-pocket well over $6,000 so far this year plus the high cost of my wife’s healthcare plan through her employer.
Maybe we should have Obamacare cards. Because that’ll fix the rampant fraud that adaher predicted upthread.
ID cards do magically prevent all fraud, right?
It seems there’s a distinction to be made between dropping young people in a warzone and stuffing a rifle into their hands and making them have health insurance. I just can’t put my finger on what it might be.
Making people go defend our country is actually a constitutional purpose and an essential function of governments since governments were first created. Making people get health care is neither constitutional, nor essential. Barack Obama himself said it wasn’t essential.
Good luck getting young people to sign up.
Who do you think is paying for the healthcare of young people who are injured on motorcycles, extreme sports and other typically dumb stuff we all did as kids? If they aren’t covered by their parents, their care is paid for by the rest of us.
Maybe we shouldn’t require them to carry car insurance either?
Young people need to be responsible and pay their share. They sure as hell (for the most part) aren’t helping pay for the care of their aging parents or grandparents.
I fully admit that I (as a young, poor, and reasonably healthy male) went without insurance for about three years in my 20s. The insurance I did qualify for through graduate school was absolutely terrible and effectively catastrophic-only coverage with the only redeeming value of being relatively cheap. I was lucky and never needed any care, but the whole time I knew I was still taking a fairly stupid risk.
And I disagree that we aren’t paying for the care of our aging parents and grandparents. What is Social Security and Medicare but a transfer program from the younger workers to the elderly and disabled? The same way that they did for their aging parents and grandparents. The only times I wasn’t paying those taxes was when my graduate stipend was exempt because I was paying tuition.
Do you agree the healthy should pay for the care of the sick? Would it surprise you to learn that 73% of Americans do this voluntarily? Why should a minority be allowed to dodge that social responsibility, and make the rest pick up the tab when something goes wrong?
Hey, I wasn’t saying that anyone should be able to dodge it. Frankly, I’d rather give up on the whole ACA and just go Medicare For All.
The federal employee unions are in a panic over the idea that they might have to get their health care from Obamacare. If they had to rely on Medicare we’d have a beef surplus due to all the cows they’d have.
Thing is several years ago when the health care reform was being discussed I made the point that one big factor that causes unions to come into an industry is to get better health care for employees. So once heath care is decoupled from the condition of one being employed, then one big reason for abusive unions to exist will be gone, so I still think that it was **really **dumb * for Republicans to oppose the reform.
It is important to notice here that many activists for low income people support health care reform because many do not have unions to demand better conditions like health care for their families. And many union people, well, they do care of other workers, losing some power while getting more security to others is important too for them.
Don’t you just hate the sense of entitlement of those Federal employees 
No, it just demonstrates that while Medicare is a fantastic option for people who are otherwise uninsurable, the relatively young and healthy can do much, much better.
Hilarity- Half of the Obamacare call center jobs will be part time, and thus ineligible for the benefits they are helping people get.