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Remember when we all made fun of the know-nothing Republicans for proffering tort reform as the cornerstone to healthcare reform? We all scoffed and laughed at how ridiculous an idea it was to make something, that at best could only save ~$20 Billion per year, a central tenet of their platform; a drop in the bucket to the ~$2,300 Billion we’re spending in total on our healthcare.
Now our most robust Public Option (the one in the house) is one that at best saves $2.5 Billion per year; only 1/8th that of the widely, and rightly, derided tort reform suggestions of the Republican establishment.
Despite that tragic comedy, we’re still running with the narrative that the Public Option is a necessary and effective cornerstone to healthcare reform. Will someone let me know when it’s okay to point and laugh at ourselves for running a banner of policy even more pathetically ineffective than what the know-nothing Republicans came to the table with?
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Nice if you provided links and evidence. (As well as evidence that single payer actually had a chance when its Congressional backers stuck by it only when it didn’t look like it’d ever come up for a vote.)
I’m pretty sure you meant the House public option saves $25 billion, not $2.5 billion:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/09/cbo_a_strong_public_plan_saves.html
Edit: My mistake, old CBO numbers. I believe what we’re talking about here is in the $6 billion range for the House. That’s just cost control to government, though. Hardly the standard by which legislation should be judged.
Tort reform is a very sore subject for me. When you have held your child’s hand and watched her take her last breath because of outright indifference, neglect, and egregious malpractice, then you can talk to me about tort reform. Until then you have no right to even mention this.
division isn’t higher math. and we already had this discussion over an earlier version when it was $110 billion.
$25 billion over 10 years is actually $2.5 billion per year. if you want to argue it’s actually over seven years or something, be my guess. it still doesn’t get you above 0.2% of our annual total national health expenditures.
nathan is right.
i am so sorry for your loss. i can’t imagine, and don’t presume to, what you have gone through. but i don’t think anyone here is advocating tort reform, just the opposite. and if it was your choice, i hope you sued the hell out of whoever was responsible for your family’s tragedy.
defensive much? single payer wasn’t even mentioned in the diary.
Ah, missed that point, thanks. Still stand by above. Certainly CBO savings to the federal government aren’t important, but they certainly aren’t the driving reason behind a lot of what we’re talking about.
PW, I make the case here, that it didn’t and doesn’t matter whether single-payer ever had a chance. The best thing the PO advocates could have done if they wanted a Jacob Hacker-type PO was to have led with and gone to the mat for, single-payer enhanced Medicare for All.
In addition, why does Nathan links for this? Almost everything he says is now common knowledge. His estimate of what we’re spending now on health care is somewhat low, but that doesn’t affect his point about the hypocrisy involved in attacking tort reform while celebrating the $2.5 billion per year the currently structured PO is likely to save.
The present bills on the table are a travesty. They do not improve the overall health insurance or health care situations, especially when their political implications are taken into account. They need to be killed and we need to do everything we can to make that happen and then return with a full-blown “Medicare for All Strategy.”
I couldn’t agree more. The amount tort reform would save is miniscule. Talking about it is one of the many distractions that those who don’t want single-payer use to distract attention from the fact that SP would save the American Economy $8 Trillion Dollars over the period of a decade.
And don’t tell it’s not feasible. Tell the people who are telling you that it’s not feasible, that they had better make it feasible or bear the political responsibility for not saving us that likely $8 Trillion Dollars, or the hundreds of thousands of lives that will be lost due to lack of insurance if we pass one or a compromise among the present bills being considered.
The relevant link on that $8 Trillion in savings is here.
Why would I make that claim in this diary? That’s not what it’s about. Whether or not Single Payer is feasible has absolutely nothing to do with how dubious the Public Option is. It’s now nothing but the insurer of last resort limited to a tiny exchange, and an enabler to the private insurers to skim the young and healthy from the exchange pool, and put the pre-conditioned and chronically ill on the government dime; because the risk adjustment mechanisms don’t attempt to curtail this, in so far as I can tell.
As for the links, CBO Estimates Show Public Plan With Higher Savings Rate, and Tort Reform Unlikely to Cut Health Care Costs
Hi Jason, Don’t know what you mean by “stand by the above.” Nathan use the figure %2.5 billion per year. Over 10 years that’s $25 billion, which is the current CBO forecast for savings from the PO. So, are you standing by his being right, or your own implication that he is not?
Usually, when you’re wrong you just admit it and move on, a very good policy that allows everyone to learn. Why not here?
They have to be the driving reasons behind what you’re talking about, because it’s the only place where the Public Option has any impact.
The Public Option provides no savings to the healthcare sector at-large, because it doesn’t operate in that sector. It operates in the exchange, and only in the exchange. As a result, the only way it ends up saving the system money is one of two ways:
1) It becomes a dumping ground for the sick from existing insurance rolls, into the exchange, onto the Public Option, and the private insurers pass on the decrease in medical-loss to their customers rather than just improving their margins (something they have a fiduciary responsibility not to do; yay Wall St.)
2) It becomes a dumping ground for the sick in the exchange, allowing the insurers to grab the young and healthy from that pool of 30+ Million new customers under the mandate, and the insurers pass on that overall decrease in medical-loss to their customers rather than just improving their margins (something they have a fiduciary responsibility not to do; yay Wall St.)
Which you’ll note doesn’t necessarily provide any savings in either case. It just moves the burden from the private to the public sector.
Here’s what I was referring to:
The CBO scores savings to the government, not savings to people, that was the point I was making. I’m not sure we should be scoring legislation solely on how much money it saves the government, but that’s what your comparison did. Tort reform would save x, public option would save y.
And my point is that public expenditure is part of the overall expenditure, and that since there’s no capacity for the Public Option to have significant influence outside the purview of the exchange, then it’s fair game to compare the fact that the Public Option will save the government $2.5 Billion per year, and that will be about the sum total of what it will save in the system at large.
Meaning that saving $20 Billion per year to the system at large is still better than ~$2.5 Billion of savings to the system at large (despite the difference in source of the Dollars), so we’re still dealing with an Apples to Apples comparison here. The CBO doesn’t score the effect of the Public Option on the overall system, but one can look at what that effect will likely be based on what the Public Option is.
We made fun of the Republicans for $20 Billion per year in savings. What should be done to highlight our strident $2.5 Billion?
One small query – (yes, readers need links where facts and figures are concerned; not everybody can accurately carry those numbers in their permanent memory):
why do you assume that any figure from “tort reform” pushers is real or accurate?
Texas has had tort reform for several years – malpractice premiums haven’t gone down for doctors, costs haven’t gone down for patients, and McAllen, in the Rio Grande Valley was the poster “region” for irrational health care costs in Atul Gawande’s recent NewYorker article comparing costs. (El Paso, of course, is the contrast, with low cost. Pretty well demos that tort reform has little to do with keeping medical costs low.)
And here’s the link.
Talk about missing the point. Yeah it only saves 2.5 billion, it also saves lives as well. How many lives does Tort reform save? Or does it simply save money?
the cbo has been scoring (this year) for fed budget numbers, not total national health expenditure (at least the cms has done some of that). but i don’t know what cbo score are you talking about here — could you give me a link to the CBO report you are referencing? your link‘s source link says:
I didn’t deny that it’s a comparison one can make, it’s just not the primary one, in my opinion. A public option does all kinds of other things besides save the government money.
That was earlier numbers, oral communications I guess, see my edit in the first comment.
The tort-reform advocates were actually claiming $200 Billion in savings, and secondarily a spurious study claiming $50-$60 Billion; if we didn’t buy the $200 Billion mark.
The $20 (twenty) Billion figure is from Michelle Mello; Professor of Law and Public Health at Harvard, and who is most definitely not a tort-reform advocate. She has the same view we all did, that the numbers from advocates were way too high, and even as such weren’t all that significant in the grand scheme of $2,300 Billion; further that the actual number, being likely much lower, makes it even more irrelevant.
So then the Public Option is the insurer of last resort? How does the exchange not fulfill that role on its own?
Your comparing two vastly different things (and fudging the published, available numbers) The intent of Tort reform in the hands of republicans is only another way to limit the damages negligent, incompetent,individuals and amoral corporations, especially insurance corporations, have to pay out when they harm somone(s). The PO as it stands is an (admittedly weak) attempt to adress the problem of unaffordable unavailable health care for 10′s of millions of people.
By not actually having to provide health care to anyone.
They’re required to offer a baseline set of policies in the exchange, at least that’s how the language of the legislation reads to me.
Hey Nathan, here is something people aren’t talking about.
was asking about your new figure of $6 billion/year.
this is the analysis i really want. because the bill will save some lives and some people will die because of it. i don’t know how to even start to make a guess at that though.
Tort Reform sounds good, because we all hate Lawyers, and skoff at the huge awards juries give people. Thinking this will save billions may be true, but at what expense.
You see yes doctors might have their malpractice insurance rates cheeper, and that will lower their costs, but it won’t get rid of the bad Doctors, or make many of them more careful in what they do.
Yes poor injured people will not be able to get such huge awards, and therefore payed compensury for their damages. We will be saving money at the expense of the injured, and for the salvation of thosewho injured them.
Most important of Tort Reform is that You read the Constitution. It expressly gives us the right to redress our grievences in a Court of Law and by Trial by Jury. Tort Reform goes against the very heart of the rights given to us in the Constitution. It limits what a person can be awarded, and distroys our jury system.
The Republicans are pushing tort reform for the big money interests they always work for, and at the expense of the injured. Although there are many good Doctors and Healthcare providers, there are also many very bad ones who do cause grievous injuries to people, and should be held to account for there actions. There are also many companies that willfully injure people to make a larger profit, and try and use high priced Lawyers and our Courts to protect themselves.
Anyone who is for Tort Reform is not only an uncaring fool, but should be ashamed of themselves and those who convinced them this was a good thing.