High Cost of Health Care shouldnt be blame on lawsuits

[Phlegm]

The article is from Reuters:

WASHINGTON - Higher prices and not lawsuits or other factors have driven up health care costs in the United States, according to a study published Tuesday.

Malpractice awards in the United States amounted to only $16 per capita in 2001, compared with $12 in Britain and $10 in Australia, the team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found.

The same team found in 2002 that Americans pay more for prescription drugs, hospital stays and doctor visits than citizens of other industrialized countries.

Writing in the journal Health Affairs, they said the price tag for such services is the main reason.

“There is a popular misconception that we pay much more for health care in the United States compared to European and other industrialized countries because malpractice claims drive up costs and there are waiting lists in most other countries,” said Gerard Anderson, who led the study.

“But what we found is that we pay more for health care for the simple reason that prices for health services are significantly higher in the United States than they are elsewhere,” he added in a statement.

“We have less access to most health services and higher costs associated with malpractice insurance have only a marginal effect on overall health spending.”

Americans do file more lawsuits, Anderson’s team reported. ”The United States had 50 percent more malpractice claims filed per 1,000 population than the United Kingdom and Australia, and 350 percent more than Canada,” they wrote.

“Two-thirds of the U.S. claims were dropped, dismissed or found in favor of the defendant.”

The average payout was $265,000, lower than the average award in Britain or Canada, they found.

Congress is working on bills that would limit malpractice claims.

Doctors say skyrocketing insurance premiums are driving them out of business while insurers blame big awards and frivolous lawsuits.

The Senate has repeatedly taken up, but failed to pass, legislation that would limit damages, usually to $250,000 per claim. Similar legislation has passed the House.

In 2002 Anderson and colleagues reported that Americans spent $5,267 per capita for health care, $1,821 more than the next-highest spender, Switzerland.

14.6 percent of GDP
U.S. health spending accounted for 14.6 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2002. Only two other countries, Switzerland and Germany, spent more than 10 percent of their GDP on health care in 2002.

“Commonwealth Fund-supported research has indicated that the U.S. does not get commensurate value for its health care dollar,” said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis, whose group funded the study.

“Compared with other countries, the U.S. lags on such quality indicators as access to care, including waiting times for physician appointments. In the U.S., inequities persist between higher and lower income patients on almost every measure we look at, while other countries are able to assure access to care without creating disparities among patients according to income.”

The study also found no evidence that U.S. citizens spend more for health care because they get more services.

It found that Americans have less access to some services, such as hospital beds, time with doctors, nurses, magnetic resonance imaging or MRI, and computed tomography (CT) scans than citizens of other developed nations.

[veeneedefeesh]

Tell those bastards at BMW and Mercedes to lower their prices and those poor doctors won't have to charge as much.

[Eziekial]

That research looks pretty unsubstatiated to me. First they say that we as a country do not pay as much in lawsuits as we thought, then they state we have 50% more suits filed then Britian and 350% more than Canada. Even if you consider that 2/3 are dropped does it included settlement? The cost of just going through the process of a suit? I think it's bullshit.

[Beelz]

You know this makes me wonder about my health coverage. I drop over $400 a month for a $2,000 deductible/ max $12,000 out of pocket, $15 copay policy.

To have my daughter's tonsils removed it cost well over $2,000 after insurance, hell my newborn son cost $950 just to get circumsized (550 for making the cut, 300 for anesthetics, 100 for 10 minute use of operating room or wherever it happened)

Healthcare is rediculus, I vote if you file a frivelous lawsuit and lose, you automatically get counter-sued by the insurance company/doctor for defamation of character & losses due to you being a dumbass for 1/2 the amount you were asking for. Make the amount non-negotiable.

[Tossica]

Insurance and corporate/healthcare greed are the reasons things are so expensive. It has nothing to do with poor people and frivolous lawsuits.

[Beelz]

whatever is doing it, it needs to be stopped.

[Lyion]

Make the people filing the lawsuits pay all court costs if it fails like they do in Britain.

This study looks like smoke and mirrors. Healthcare is an issue, but it seems another rallying point for socialized medicine which is ass.