This is another of many health insurance ideas on which I have some pertinent remarks.
Malpractice law suits create defensive medicine that does no medical good, but costs a fortune for insurance companies and their clients.
A Massachusetts Medical Society study found that five out of six doctors order procedures and referrals that amount to about 25% of total medical costs, as a means of MD protection from lawsuits. According to the Pacific Research Institute, such defensive medicine wastes more than $200 billion a year.
The entire medical-malpractice system thus has to be changed. There ought to be a form of no-fault system, a pool to reimburse those injured from medical errors or accidents. Judges would be medical experts, not inexpert juries, swayed by trial lawyers who get one third of the lottery-sized proceeds.
The no-fault pool would be funded by a small tax on health-insurance premiums.
There is a major problem, however, to this otherwise simple solution, of making some remedial corrections to health insurance. Over 90% of tort lawyer political contributions go to the Democrat party. This accounts for the fact tort reform is never one of the reforms Congress mentions.
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