Tax Attorney Columbus Ohio

Actually the line about lawsuits is false. If it were true, there would be documentation AND a decrease in costs where “tort reform” exists.

“Victor Schwartz, ATRA’s General Counsel, told Business Insurance (July 19, 1999) that “Many tort reform advocates do not contend that restricting litigation will lower insurance rates, and I’ve never said that in 30 years.”
(azinjurycenter.com/CM/Custom/TOCTheTruthAbout.asp) ”

A very informative article ran in the Dallas Morning News on 17 June 2007 by Eric Torbenson and Jason Roberson. It dealt with TX “tort reform” that was passed in 2003. That law capped non-economic damages (such as pain and suffering and loss of companionship) at $250,000 against a physician and $750,000 total. No cost savings have been passed on to the consumer.

“caps according to Bernard Black, a law and finance professor at the University of Texas. The cost of malpractice claims, including their defense, was probably about 2 cents. As to actual awards, before the caps the average was $1.21 million; after the caps it was $880,000. What it has done, however, is cut the number of malpractice lawsuits in half. Many lawyers state that even in an obvious case of malpractice that if they were to get the best possible result from the case, they would not even be able to cover their costs, let alone have anything left for the plaintiff. For the working poor or elderly, who are not going to get any significant, if any “economic losses” money, their potential judgment would have been the pain and suffering element, so their cases simply aren’t “worth” hearing. ”
Cassandra Nathan, Save America, Save the World p. 150

“Bob Hunter, the Texas insurance commissioner for former Governor Richardson, looked at 30 years of malpractice suits and stated that for 22 years, when amounts were adjusted for inflation, malpractice awards had been flat. Hunter stated one reason for the rise in malpractice premium costs were insurers were trying to make up for losses from the post-9/11 stock market (remember they invest that “float” money for profits). Another reason, Hunter stated, was that malpractice premiums had been lowered for several years and they needed to be readjusted for one of the typical cycles in insurance. Nonetheless, the GAO, Government Accounting Office, lays the blame for higher malpractice premiums at the door of malpractice lawsuits. Before the caps came in, Texas was down to four malpractice insurers; they now have 33.”–Nathan, pp. 151-152

Contrast the Texas experience with another article (azinjurycenter.com) which notes: “According to the Health Care Financing Administration, doctor’s salaries went up 41.7 percent from 1988 to 1998 while medical malpractice costs only went up 5.7 percent during this same period of time. Health care costs went up 74.7 percent.” The article points out that states that do cap such claims, such as California, had only an 8 percent difference in malpractice insurance premiums and that nationally such rates went up 0.2 percent, but 0.4 percent in California between 1991 and 2000. Then it was stated that a dozen years after passage of the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act that malpractice premiums increased 190 percent and that in California their healthcare costs grew by 343 percent.

You are correct that quite a few people reject insurance available to them because they’ve been able to get away with it. However, even having insurance is NO protection with the way the government lets the big insurers do anything they want:
When 75% of the people who declare bankruptcy over medical bills ARE INSURED, then insurance is CLEARLY not the answer.
“Aldrich’s situation is “asinine” but increasingly common, said Dr. Deborah Thorne of Ohio University. Thorne, co-author of a widely quoted 2005 study that found medical bills contributed to nearly half of the 1.5 million personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. each year, said that ratio has likely worsened since the data was gathered.
…
Like Aldrich, Thorne said, three-quarters of the individuals in the study who declared bankruptcy because of health problems were insured. ”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20201807/

Linda Peeno, MD testified that SHE had often denied treatment JUST to save the insurance company money http://www.thenationalcoalition.org/DrPeenotestimony.html

Furthermore:
“the vast majority of health insurance policies are through for-profit stock companies. They are in the process of “shedding lives” as some term it when “undesirable” customers are lost through various means, including raising premiums and co-pays and decreasing benefits (Britt, “Health insurers getting bigger cut of medical dollars,” 15 October 2004, investors.com). That same Investors Business Daily article from 2004 noted the example of Anthem, another insurance company. They said the top five executives (not just the CEO) received an average of an 817 percent increase in compensation between 2000 and 2003. The CEO, for example, had his compensation go from $2.5 million to $25 million during that time period. About $21 million of that was in stock payouts, the article noted.

A 2006 article, “U.S. Health Insurance: More Market Domination, More CEO Compensation”
(hcrenewal.blogspot.com) notes that in 56 percent of 294 metropolitan areas one insurer “controls more than half the business in health maintenance organization and preferred provider networks underwriting.” In addition to having the most enrollees, they also are the biggest purchasers of health care and set the price and coverage terms. “’The results is double-digit premium increases from 2001 and 2004—peaking with a 13.9 percent jump in 2003—soaring well above inflation and wages increases.’” Where is all that money going? The article quotes a Wall Street Journal article looking at the compensation of the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. His salary and bonus is $8 million annually. He has benefits such as the use of a private jet. He has stock-option fortunes worth $1.6 billion.”
–Save America, Save the World by Cassandra Nathan pp. 127-128

“Insurance Companies Robbing Patients
Robbing patients to pay CEOs leads to unprecedented medical insurance corporation greed.
Thursday, January 3, 2008 8:52 AM
By: Michael Arnold Glueck & Robert J. Cihak, The Medicine Men”
http://www.newsmax.com/medicine_men/medical_insurance/2008/01/03/61543.html

There is a sensible plan out there and it takes the onus of employers where it does NOT belong and never did:
QUALITY, ACCESSIBLE, AFFORDABLE health care for all.
That means preventative care (physical with follow up). Real medication (no Medicare “donut holes” the really ill are ripped off again.) No bogus ridiculously low “caps” on needed medical procedures. No abuse of the ER. No paying for the silly with the sniffles to go to the doc for free. No more bankruptcies over medical bills. I want THIS plan that ends abuse of the taxpayer, takes the burden off employers, provides price transparency, and ends the rip-off of the US taxpayer at the hands of greedy insurance CEOs (which has been repeatedly documented).
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.html
Read the PDF, not the blurb, for the bulk of the plan. Book is searchable on Amazon.com
Cassandra Nathan’s Save America, Save the World