Since I’m sure all members of Congress will have the opportunity to read and comprehend the entirety of whatever is the current healthcare legislation the following small steps to improve the situation will be meaningless. I have 3 simple proposals that could fit on a single page. Heck, it fits in a single post.
- Eliminate pre-existing conditions as a reason to deny insurance.
- Allow insurance companies to sell in any market in the US.
- Malpractice reform — Loser Pays
I think the first 2 are self evident so lets focus for a moment on the third. Loser Pays What I mean is that all legal fees will be paid by the losing party to the litigation. This would include naming a doctor in a med mal suit and then dropping them from the suit. You see, just because a doctor gets dropped from a suit doesn’t mean that his malpractice carrier doesn’t incur costs. In fact, it’s usually about $20K to defend a suit that is dropped. Interestingly, anytime a doc is dropped from a suit, they must sign a release stating that they will not sue the plaintiff’s attorney. I once tried not to sign this but my lawyer told me he’d never seen it done before. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t solve many of the problems facing our healthcare industry. But I bet it would improve the situation with minimal effort.