February 17, 2010
4:39 pm
One of the oft-cited goals of health reform is to ‘bend the cost curve’ on health spending. On that point, a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal raises questions over whether the current House and Senate bills could actually exacerbate costs as a result of new health-related litigation.
Where might these lawsuits arise? Writing in the Journal, Curt Levey, the executive director of the Committee for Justice, points toward the legislation’s creation of “new federally enforceable rights and obligations, layers of complex federal regulations, and dozens of new programs and agencies — not to mention 50 brand-new health ‘exchanges’.” Legal action would contest everything from questions of constitutionality to procedural disputes to individual coverage challenges to contests of bureaucratic decisions implementing the legislation.
Levey emphasizes that “there’s enough vague and ambiguous statutory language to keep lawyers employed for decades.” For instance, some provisions that call for HHS’s broad rule-making could end up being litigated “as an improper delegation of congressional authority.” But the number of lawsuits would especially mount from individuals’ case-by-case disputes. People would exercise their “new-found right to essential health benefits.” Legally challenging limitless, routine coverage decisions could well spring forth in droves. Read more
February 05, 2010
9:19 am
Ron Williams, the chief executive officer of Aetna and a member of the Healthcare Leadership Council executive committee, is a co-chair of the prestigious Davos Economic Summit. While in Davos, Mr. Williams took the time to sit down with Fox Business News and discuss the current state of health reform and what’s missing from the current legislation that is stalled on Capitol Hill.
He makes important points about the need to emphasize care coordination between physicians and hospitals, the noticeable absence of medical liability reform which leads to rising defensive medicine costs, and the pressing need to make the financially challenged Medicare program more cost effective.
To watch the full interview go here.
December 02, 2009
3:20 pm
I was watching the U.S. Senate debate on health reform legislation this afternoon and had the opportunity to watch one senator making an impassioned speech about medical liability reform. His message was that strong liability measures shouldn’t be included in the reform bill and that there is very little need for them anyway.
Missouri is just the latest state that would beg to differ.
New data released this fall by Missouri’s State Department of Insurance showed that just over 1,200 malpractice claims were filed in 2008, the lowest number since 1999. It’s not at all a coincidence that, in 2005, the Missouri state legislature passed a tort reform bill that included a $350,000 cap on noneconomic damages and requirements that plaintiffs include an expert opinion or a certificate of merit with their filing to discourage frivolous suits. Read more
October 09, 2009
3:25 pm
Opponents of medical liability reform have always been fond of quoting the Congressional Budget Office saying that reform measures would do very little to save taxpayers money and squeeze unnecessary spending out of the healthcare system.
CBO has now re-evaluated the issue and determined what many healthcare experts have always known to be true, that the current flawed medical liability system is costing billions of dollars in spending that doesn’t help a single patient.
CBO’s latest analysis, issued yesterday, says that government healthcare programs can save as much as $54 billion over 10 years if nationwide limits on non-economic damages in medical liability cases are utilized. That’s a tenfold increase from what CBO estimated just last year. Read more
August 28, 2009
10:37 am
Two congressional town hall meetings this week. At one event, a question was raised. At another, a couple of hundred miles to the south, that question was answered, but not in a way that should please advocates of meaningful health reform.
In Newark, Delaware, at a constituent gathering hosted by Representative Mike Castle (R-DE), Dr. Nicholas Biasatto, the president of the Delaware Medical Association, wondered why health reform legislation that has emerged from House committees contains no mention of medical liability reform. As Dr. Biasatto pointed out, an estimated $70 billion to $127 billion is spent each year on defensive medicine – tests and procedures that are performed primarily as protection against the possibility of litigation.
Had Dr. Biasatto been in Alexandria, Virginia, he would have heard a candid answer to his question from former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who was taking part in a town hall meeting with Representative Jim Moran (D-VA). Governor Dean said, “The reason tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everyone else they were taking on, and that’s the plain and simple truth.”
Governor Dean is to be commended for his candor, but his answer casts a spotlight on a glaring omission in the various health reform bills working their way through Congress. Read more
CATEGORIES: