Reid is acting stupid - throw rocks at him.

[Ming]

Best Ezra Klein editorial in a while

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...120702947.html

A good editorial... Education is needed. Many people are making knee jerk decisions without the right information.

But as good as the editorial was, that's just one of the issues. We still need to address the real issue... the rising cost of healthcare. One of the biggest "costs" is insurance for doctors. Malpractice premiums are going through the roof. We need real tort reform here. Sure, some doctors should be sued for malpractice, but these days, it seems if anything goes wrong, even something beyond the Doctors actions, it's lawsuit time. Too many malpractice suits, valid or not, are helping to raise the cost of the healthcare.

[KrazyHorse]

Errr...the whole point of the Klein article was that meaningful price reductions are impossible when people don't see the costs they pay...

[Ming]

Errr...the whole point of the Klein article was that meaningful price reductions are impossible when people don't see the costs they pay...

Yep.. and that's why more education is needed, just as I said before.

But that doesn't mean that known problems can't be addressed. Malpractice premiums are something that are known, and can be addressed now, without ANY education of the consumer needed.

[Drake Tungsten]

Best Ezra Klein editorial in a while

That's not saying much, but I'll check it out.

[KrazyHorse]

Malpractice premiums are tiny relative to total cost, Ming...

And it's not about education; Klein stops short of the real problem. The real problem is that prices are information AND incentive.

Prices are hidden from consumers currently; this means that they have neither the information NOR the incentive to attempt to economize on their consumption...

[Dinner]

Indeed. Texas has the strictest curbs to malpractice awards in the country but its health care costs are going up the fastest in the country. All the draconian anti-malpractice awards laws have done is make it extremely difficult for people to sue doctors who really did commit malpractice. It didn't do a damn thing to curb costs in Texas.

[Theben]

Single payer capped between 60%-90% of total cost?

[rah]

Malpractice premiums are tiny relative to total cost, Ming...

Maybe not tiny but I generally agree. But all the needless tests that are done to CYA against being sued should be added to that cost, which would make it considerably larger than "tiny".

[Imran Siddiqui]

I think its a bit more than simply CYA. After all, the doctors aren't doing those extra tests for free... convincing people that it's only CYA is, though, an ingenious ploy by the doctors.

[rah]

The doctors don't pay for them. And if a doctor says you need a test, paranoia usually keeps the patient from contesting the necessity of the test.