A private conversation was recently held wherein some salient questions posed by friend of mine really made me think. He wondered how the impending Obamacare policies would impinge on malpractice insurance and lawsuits and wondered if a government takeover of our medical system would mean automatic tort reform and an end to malpractice insurance. I have to say, these are some excellent questions.
After all, if the U.S. government is to take control of the healthcare system, then any malpractice suit would essentially be one brought against the federal government. And we all know how much harder it is to beat government in court, not to mention how expensive it is. If, for instance, government can claim that it has control over healthcare because it serves as its bankroller and regulator, then surely the responsibility for malpractice belongs to that same controlling interest.
Currently doctors pay outrageous premiums for malpractice insurance. A CBS report from 2004, for instance, revealed that some OB-GYNs then paid as much as $90,000 a year for malpractice insurance. Today it is likely closer to $200,000. These outrageous premiums mean that a doctor must take in something like $400,000 a year to be able to afford the insurance premiums and still make a living worth going through the decades of training and schooling required to become a doctor.
It is beyond a doubt, though, that if the U.S. government takes over medical care as Obama plans to do we will see the end of the average OB-GYN making anywhere near any $400,000 annually. Naturally if malpractice insurance stays exactly the same as it now is, that will mean that doctors will simply not be able to make a living. So, obviously something will have to change with malpractice insurance.
It seems that private malpractice insurance will simply cease to be and some government version will replace it. Seems simple enough, perhaps, but what will this portend for the aggrieved? Who cannot see that an elimination of private malpractice insurance, a collapse in doctor’s salaries, and a subsequent shift of responsibility from private medical care providers to government bureaucrats will materially hamper the success rate of malpractice cases?
It will surely become far harder to bring lawsuits for malpractice against what will essentially become government doctors and it will also be harder to win such cases when they are successfully joined. Further more financial awards for patients harmed by government doctors will be far, far lower than they are today.
If Obama cared so much about the health and welfare of the people, how does materially hampering their ability to find justice for malpractice fit in with that goal?
So, what is the plan? Why is the Obama administration staying mum on this issue? And what of the trial lawyers? Why aren’t they talking about this? Is there a secret deal being worked out between the big Democrat donors in the trial lawyers groups and team Obama?
These all seem like questions that aren’t being asked in public during this healthcare debate.
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