If we want to address health care we also need to address the civil tort system that turns a serious problem into a catasrophic problem. Doing one without the other is not only ineffective it’s hypocritical.
The primary reason health care is so expensive that we can’t just give it away to everyone is because there are waaaay too many attornies and professional victims who equate a doctor’s visit to a lottery ticket.
Universal health care isn’t about providing the best coverage to everyone – it’s about providing a servicable level of care, even though mistakes and deficiencies will sometimes occur as a result. Holding everyone to the gold standard is the reason these doctors have to order all those expensive tests even though 95% of the time they aren’t necessary. The doctors spend too much time, effort and money for CYA.
For those people who have both the desire and the means for the gold standard they can always pay the extra. Everyone else gets the Walter Reed version; not perfect but about equal to what you’d get in any other country with universal health care.
That, and we need to put some teeth into the disciplinary boards and agencies that are charged with regulating the professional practice of these care providers. We wouldn’t view litigation lotto as being the primary mode of control over substandard health care providers if the government would enforce the existing laws and regulations that already apply.
But I don’t wanna hear any noise about addressing only half the problem to the exclusion and benefit of the other half.
