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Dr. John Garrett, a physician at the Virginia Hospital Center, was on CSPAN this evening pontificating against the public health insurance option. Among other things, he claimed that we need tort reform to keep health insurance costs down.
Of course, Atul Gawande thouroughly debunked that claim in his New Yorker piece months ago on McAllen, TX. McAllen is the town in this country with the most expensive health care per capita. Texas is the state in this country with some of the strictest tort reform laws. Even the doctors in McAllen admitted that tort reform did nothing:
“It’s malpractice,” a family physician who had practiced here for thirty-three years said.
“McAllen is legal hell,” the cardiologist agreed. Doctors order unnecessary tests just to protect themselves, he said. Everyone thought the lawyers here were worse than elsewhere.
That explanation puzzled me. Several years ago, Texas passed a tough malpractice law that capped pain-and-suffering awards at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Didn’t lawsuits go down?
“Practically to zero,” the cardiologist admitted.
“Come on,” the general surgeon finally said. “We all know these arguments are bullshit. There is overutilization here, pure and simple.” Doctors, he said, were racking up charges with extra tests, services, and procedures.
Dr. Garrett is set to be on Washington Journal tomorrow AM. Got a question to ask him? Leave one in the comments, then call in tomorrow and ask or email.
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He also said the VA Hospital Ctr gets paid only 80% of costs by medicare, gets 140% from private insurance. No mention of the costs of paperwork from insurance filing.
I have question for CSPAN and the other corrupt media outlets: Did he have an opposite? I thought that you always had to have a pair (no jokes please on a pair of whats) of opposed viewpoints, to keep things ‘fair’? Did one of the very many many doctors who support strong reform (even single payer and PO) appear to give his/her views?
Krugman said that one of his appearances was cancelled because they could not find anyone to oppose him. Does that rule not apply when conservatives show up to speak?
My question is what does malpractice have to do with adverse selection problems, which are at the root of many of the worse problems of our health care system? Suppose we do have malpractice reform (something I support in fact), and policies were somewhat cheaper because of it. Then an uninsurable person with a pre-existing condition would not be allowed to purchase a somewhat cheaper policy.
And because laws like EMPTALA guarantee some treatment for everyone when things get bad enough, there would still be wasteful cross-subsidization, that would still result in the unfortunate pubic and private payment policies that the doctor is complaining about.
So, how does malpractice reform alone produce significant progress?
Is today the designated malpractice reform red herring day?
And, regarding the quote from the Gawande piece, how would the doctor feel about changes in the law to eliminate physician self-dealing in referrals to physician owned labs, clinics and specialty hospitals? I think that is a form of ethical malpractice, very common in the US health care system, that should be stopped.
Here’s a question. Considering that malpractice premiums are too high, how much of the premium reflects the administrative cost and how much is profit to the company?
Just watched the program, didn’t stay the whole time, but it seemed they avoided emails altogether. Maybe the ‘independent’ Dr. felt threatened, since he’s standing in the way of patients’ health care if they’re not rich enough.