Saturday, November 7, 2009

Reform must deal with torts

The American people are looking for two things when it comes to health care: low costs and easy access. When it comes to government-run health care, the costs will be substantially higher in the near future, not lower. This is because in the Senate version and in the House bills, they have not addressed tort reform nor have they addressed easy access to health care.

When it comes to tort reform, there are two possibilities. First, we can go to a loser-pay system such as the United Kingdom recently put into place. The incidence of malpractice lawsuits has dropped dramatically in the U.K. It requires arbitration before the plaintiff sues. Secondly, the other possibility would be to do like Sweden and New Zealand are doing and that is to incorporate a "no fault" approach. Under this system, patients are quickly compensated when payments are based on the severity of injury without assigning blame to doctors. Let the AMA discipline the errant doctor the same way the bar association disciplines lawyers.

Lastly, the public needs to be able to buy health insurance across state lines; we currently do this with homeowners insurance and auto insurance.

John E. Ahern
Spokane