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Friday, September 4, 2009 9:39 PM CDT
LETTER: Feds not addressing
high health care costs
SID GUILL, Mattoon
The health care debate stirs passions on both sides. Ironically, the government wants to fix problems that it created in the first place.
When a doctor has to pay $200,000 for malpractice insurance, there is something wrong. Obama said he won’t touch tort reform, which is our biggest factor.
People should have the right to sue for malpractice, but some of the settlements are staggering and many of the lawsuits should have been dismissed at the start.
A congressman said last week that insurance companies have too much paperwork, which drives up cost. He ought to know, since the government created most of it.
Insurance used to cover only hospitalization and we paid for doctor visits and prescriptions. Then insurance companies added more services and costs went up.
At one point I was self-employed and couldn’t afford health insurance. I bought catastrophic insurance at a fraction of what regular health insurance cost. When my son needed an operation that year, it paid all but $100 of his bill. The operation was around $3,000.
Maybe we need to move towards that type of insurance. If you had tort reform coupled with letting insurance companies compete over state lines, which the government won’t allow now, you might actually lower the cost.
People think doctors make a lot of money, but they should get paid well for saving our lives. Maybe if they didn’t have to pay so much for malpractice insurance, they could charge less for office visits. It also costs a lot to go to the emergency room. What do hospitals pay for malpractice insurance?
I am really not trying to pick on lawyers. Most of them are not ambulance chasers and are there to help us when we need it. Still, the woman who spilled hot coffee on herself and sued McDonald’s got a lot of money for being stupid. Some lawyer took that case and got big bucks for her, and the cost of fast food went up to cover restaurants’ insurance.
I agree that things need to be changed. The problem with government doing it is they are not addressing the reasons costs are high. Costs can’t go down without doing that. Yes I know it’s supposed to be free, but it will be supported with our tax money.
Somebody said, “If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it’s free.” How true.
SID GUILL
Mattoon
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Cognitus wrote on Sep 6, 2009 4:39 PM:
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People should have the right to sue for malpractice,
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Well, make up your mind.
And don't bring up the case of the woman who spilled hot coffee; that was NOT a malpractice suit.
You should read an article ihis morning by T R Reid, a Washington Post reporter who has lived all over the world. He contrasts the single-payer good experiences he has had with the ones he gets here.
Incidentally TR Reid was in Charleston a few years ago and I had an opportunity to meet hime. "