I am very fortunate that I had the opportunity to be in the Gallery last night for the President’s speech on healthcare. It was a historic evening and I am confident we heard the outline for legislation that will become law.
As a business owner, I understand our healthcare system is broken. Every year we go through a lengthy process of bidding our coverage to the insurance companies. Year after year, the results of that process place a greater burden on both our employees and our company. The fact is, our employees’ healthcare expense has grown significantly more than their incomes and our employer contribution each year grows as a large percentage of our corporate expenses.
I am surely not a healthcare expert, but I am certain that we need to reform our system or risk further economic crisis. We cannot continue to spend over 15 percent of GDP on healthcare and expect to be an economic superpower.
Now, the difficult part is what do we do to improve the system? This issue is so complicated that I have been nervous to comment as I admit I don’t understand all the causes and effects. After hearing the President last night, I want to discuss a few issues that particularly impressed me.
First, the President made a passionate case for the “progressive capitalist”. He spoke for the vast middle of this Country who want free markets but require accountability and action. The President so eloquently reminded us:
“You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem. They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom. But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited. And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter — that at that point we don’t merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges. We lose something essential about ourselves.”
Second, the President kept a government option on the table but only as a means to an end, to cover all Americans. If the private sector were to take responsibility for this, then the government option would not be required. From an economic perspective we all pay for those that go uncovered but only at the most tragic and expensive times, at the emergency room. I am involved in Mount Sinai Medical Center on Miami Beach and the amount of uncompensated care the hospital provides on an annual basis is mind blowing.
Third, the President truly reached across the isle. As a progressive capitalist, I was excited to hear him put medical malpractice reform on the table. In this process neither Republicans or Democrats can have their sacred cows. There is no question the practice of defensive medicine is one of the contributing factors to our broken system. However, reform must be responsible and address the true problems not merely penalize trial attorneys.
I was inspired by the President last night. Healthcare is such a sensitive issue that impacts all or our lives in the most profound ways. I hope partisanship and fear do not stop reform that is so badly needed.
Tags: business, employees, Healthcare, President, progressive capitalist
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I cannot speak knowledgeably about the ins and outs of the healthcare system, but I think I have enough experience in the legal arena to touch on tort reform.
I am a middle of the road conservative (probably dead center on domestic issues like healthcare reform) but to try and cap damages in a medical malpractice suit is just unfair. Quite simply, it takes away the most pivotal quality of the Courts — justice. Where a person is injured by other(s) and proves with reasonable certainty the his/her damages, the injured person should be entitled to recover these damages, on a dollar for dollar basis. If someone is legitimately injured in an amount of 1 million dollars as a result of someone’s unreasonable actions or inaction, it is unfair to cap their recovery at an arbitrary number like $250,000.00.
However, there are two areas where the legal system can be tweaked to hopefully (a) discourage/eradicate/penalize cases without merit and (b) keep down judgments that are outrageous or unforeseeable.
The doors of our courts should be open to all. There is a reason that justice is blind. However, Plaintiffs and their attorneys should be tempered by statutes that will provide for the recovery of attorneys’ fees, where a defendant proves he has no liability.
First, this will make people think twice about filing unwarranted suits in an effort to squeeze out a settlement based on a defendant’s cost analysis (i.e. I might as well settle the claim for $40,000.00 where it is going to cost me $100,000.00 just in legal fees to defend).
Second, it will temper attorneys who believe in the “sue everyone” approach. Maybe investigation will be more appropriately sought before suit and the plaintiffs will actually sue the individuals who have culpability, rather than the entire world who ever came into contact with the plainitff.
The next issue is punitive damages. Punitive damage claims made by plaintiffs allow for a jury to punish a defendant, not just for the harm they caused in this matter, but to deter the type of conduct in the future. Punitive damage claims have the potential to jack up a verdict 300% or more above the actual damage caused by a defendant. It is an effective deterrent in cases where corporate defendants make conscious decisions to forego reasonable actions because its less cost effective. For instance, in the Ford Pinto cases, Ford made a conscious decision to not recall the Pinto for a defective design that caused a small percentage of the calls to catch fire. In essence, Ford said “if someone dies, we’ll pay the 4 million dollars in a lawsuit rather than recall the cars and change the design which will cost us hundreds of millions”. Punitive damages are warranted in instances like that.
But punitive damages should be reserved for the most egregious activitities. Like patent cases, medical malpractice cases should, at their outset, hold a “Markman” type hearing and let the judge, as gatekeeper, decide whether the case meets a statutorily delineated standard for “most egregious” and therefore warrants the allowanace of a potenital punitive damage claim. Weeding out cases with unwarranted punitive damages claims, will greatly reduce the burden on defendants in settling or resolving matters because Plaintiff’s demands will go down greatly and defendants will be dealing with finite damages that are quantifiable.
These two tweaks to our legal system would be a perfect middle balance for tort reform — reform I think the right and left would agree to.