Are too many lawyers the cause of what many consider to be a poor healthcare system?

Answer 1

Uhhh, no. I wish I could say that, but no. And there may be some who will disagree with me.

Actually - you can't pin point to just one source. As a society, we have created our own nightmare... and these are just a few reasons...

REASON 1:
Employer's have created an "entitlement mentality" with employee's that their insurance will be provided by their employer. In doing so (& until recently) they've failed to educate employee's on the true cost of health plans until it was out of control.

REASON 2:
As employees, we've also failed to educate ourselves about health insurance and the actual costs because we pay co-pay's and partial premiums... and because no one ever told us we had to! But if all of us paid as much attention to the TRUE and total cost of our healthcare as we did to our deductible on our car insurance, we'd be so much better off!!!

Think about it - if we put as much diligence into shopping our health insurance, our doctor, our hospital's, what the total cost of each procedure would be... and we held the medical community more accountable for what they charge us - yes it would be more work, but just because you put effort into finding the best price doesn't mean you sacrifice quality! (and obviously I'm talking outside the scope of true emergency and trauma situations)

We quality/price shop for homes, for cars, for clothes, electronics, etc... but we can't do the same for our health care and then we scratch our head and can't understand why we essentially get raped on the cost?

How many of us have EVER taken our child (or ourselves) to the ER or the doctor because we have insurance and we'd rather be safe than sorry???? (mmmm... guilty! Raising my hand!) But if we thought about the fact the ER trip was $1K and then the ER doc gives you some tylenol and says to go to your regular doc the next day anyway... I mean... seriously?

How many people know there are Nurse Hotlines (800 #'s) available in in which you can talk to a nurse 24/7 and find out if you really do need to go to the doctor or not? I've worn ours out for myself and my daughter and probably saved myself and the insurance plan thousands! Just little ole me... saving thousands!

How many of us get the more expensive drug because we are willing to suck up the higher co-pay, yet we don't realize that the cost difference in that one prescription is $1000 and we fill it once a month for a year, so that's a $12,000 hickey to the health plan just because we wanted name brand instead of generic? (Yes, I know, some people legitimately need it... but plenty don't) And what if you have a few thousand employees? Maybe only a handful of employee's do it (maybe 10), but it may still mean the difference of $100,000 to what the employer is paying on the health plan in one year... for TEN employee's?

REASON 3:
Insurance companies, networks, and doctors... we create the networks to give employee's a "discount" in their cost, so the doctor's raise their prices to offset the discount... and those that are private pay often don't know that they can negotiate with their doctor to pay the disounted price and get hit with the full price! We all know the cost of malpractice insurance and medical research plays a price in overall medical costs, but in general... there are a lot of pieces to this puzzle...

So what will change it? Socialized health care? Has anyone heard how well our social security program is working? Do we really want to trust our health to the same (similar) program?

The first step is that all of us, as consumers, have to educate ourselves about the in's and out's of health insurance and what our true medical costs are and use it wisely... only THEN, as educated consumers, are any of us in a position to debate whether or not the system works and what we can do to change all of the other failing pieces.

ADDED LATER:
Wow - didn't take long for me to get a thumbs down! Perhaps I'm in the minority of thinking that people should take responsibility for their own actions as consumers instead of blaming - or placing responsibility on the government...

And I agree with some of the others who have posted stating it's not so much that we have a poor healthcare system - it's the affordability of the health care (hence the reasons for my answers),

I'm not specifically saying my 3 reasons are the end all/be all to identifying a solution - but as someone who manages self-funded health plans for corporations (in an effort to control costs) and the one who pays the bill each month, reconciles against the plan expenses, shops the providers, negotiates with the brokers and the insurance companies, launches extensive education programs in conjunction with open enrollment, assists my employee's with claims management and am constantly researching industry standards because the health plan is the second highest business expense to my company (next to payroll) and watching the costs continue to increase and trying to keep them as low as possible for a general employee population that can't afford the increases - I take it very seriously!!

I am also the person who listens to employees complain about how expensive insurance is, yet unfortunately the ones who complain the loudest are often (not always) the ones who abuse the benefit and make no effort at helping to control the very costs they complain about...

I'm not in "health care" per se, so I can't offer any insight from a medical professionals point of view... but I am on the front line as the person with the bill in hand... trying to help the average small to mid size business figure out a way to offer the best benefits possible to their employees, despite spiraling costs... and trying to help find ways to help the employee pay for it...

And FYI - much of my "opinion" is based not only on my experience, but on extensive industry research and statistics... and has nothing to do with G.W. or his agenda...

When my organization rolled out the Consumer Driven Health Plan with an HRA option through BCBS as the first employer in the state to do so in 04 - we still offered traditional health plans (HMO & PPO), but launched extensive education for CDHP as an alternative to our employees - but we didn't force them to them use it. Our health plan costs were increasing by almost as much as 20% each year and by offering this type of health plan and EDUCATING our employees, the rate at which our premiums were increasing did start going down after only one year.

Answer 2

No. First of all, we do not have a poor health care system. What Liberals complain about is that so many people do not have health care benefits through their employer, and that private medical insurance is too expensive for many people to afford.

Liberals point to socialist countries like Canada and England where everyone has government healthcare benefits. They want the United States to become a socialist country.

One of the problems is increased technology in healthcare. Years ago when doctors examined patients they looked at the pupils in their eyes, took their pulse and blood pressure, and felt different parts of the body with their fingers and hands.

Treatments were also very cheap and doctors didn't make enough money to get rich. Now routine tests often cost thousands of dollars and treatments for the disease also cost thousands of dollars. A weeks stay in the hospital may cost $100,000. Cardiologists often make a million dollars a year.

All of the above is important because, contrary to some peoples ideas, there is only a finite amount of money to pay for healthcare. If the government (which only has our tax money to spend. It is not like a fairy godmother), were to pay for everyone's healthcare, healthcare would have to be rationed.

Healthcare in Canada and England is highly rationed. They will not pay for many things that are routine for people in the USA who have insurance. They also may not have the best doctors and enough nurses.

In Canada, all the doctors are paid by the government and make about $50,000 a year. Why would someone who is very smart go to college and medical school for 8 years and serve a 5 year residency to only make that amount of money?


I had a friend who has a sister in Canada who was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She had to wait 6 months to get on the surgery schedule. (Doctors can't do surgeries without several nurses to help them) When I asked my friend if his sister's tumor was cancer or not, he said the doctors didn't know but that they didn't think so. It's good that it turned out to not be cancer, because if it was, she would have died before before they had time to operate.

We all hear that the high awards in malpractice lawsuits drive up healthcare costs. What no one tells people is that if there weren't high awards the doctors would not be as careful.

When a patient of mine complained of "chest pain" and I told the doctor about it, they would routinely order an EKG to find out for sure. This had to be done all the time because you can't tell if someone is having a heart attack by the symptoms alone.

Only about 1 out of a hundred times would the patient be having a heart attack and I have heard some people say this is wasteful and wouldn't be done except for the risk of a lawsuit.

The trouble is that there is no "only" 1 out of 100, to the 1 person having the heart attack. If it wasn't for the EKG he or she would have died!

There are some other factors that relate to this but I hope that I have covered the basics.

Answer 3

I think you are mistaken on several counts.

"Many consider the healthcare system to be poor" is I believe an incorrect statement. A more accurate statement might be "Many consider our healthcare system to be excellent quality, but unaffordable to too many people."

As to the lawyers involvement.
* Issues of quality of hospital care, medicine, doctor diagnosis, technology ... the lawyers have had minimal involvement compared to the work of drug chemists, medical research, testing ... they involved yes, but the quality ... their contribution minimal support
* Issues of high cost ... oh yes the lawyers have played a role there, such as malpractice insurance ... but it is only a support role ... lawyers do not bring the lawsuits ... some human being or company hires lawyer to bring the lawsuits

so you are blaming lawyers for problems not of their making, other than their role in our government
* of the people
* by the lawyers
* for the lawyers

look at the makeup of Congress to see what I mean.

Answer 4

Politicians depend on political contributions from sleazy health insurance and pharmaceutical companies. This causes them to vote for policies (such as allowing HMOs and not regulating the prices of medicines), that will hurt the general population.

Answer 5

No, too many illegal aliens sucking the system dry and too many HMOs offering to pay less than 30% of the going rates.

In most states, malpractice suits are greatly limited these days.