[Colleens_Husband]

There is one very simple and relatively painless health care reform measure that has been taken off the table for discussion and it may be the one single item which absolutely would show a huge cost savings.

Of course, the best way to contain health care costs is to reform medical tort law. Before any doctor can open any type of practice, the first cost they must incur is errors and omissions insurance. The average cost per year of errors and omissions insurance is one hundred thousand dollars for a GP, two hundred thousand for a neurosurgeon, and three hundred thousand for a OB/GYN. This single cost alone makes up roughly half of the budget for most doctor's practices.

Perhaps a larger cost for failing to contain the cost of litigation is that doctors eventually end up practicing defensive medicine. They order unnecessary tests as a way of covering their rear ends from litigation which once again drives up health care costs.

Furthermore, the cost of potential litigation can double or triple the costs of certain drugs.

I'm not suggesting that those injured by a doctor wouldn't have a right to seek redress. Perhaps a medical board could review any case and decides if it has merit before litigation proceeds. Perhaps punitive damages could only be double actual damages, and maybe pain and suffering damages could be reduced, mitigated, or eliminated, by statute. Of course all of these solutions would cost next to nothing.

Most health care proposals that I have heard coming out of Congress refer to limiting the doctor's salaries. If that seems like a fair thing to do, then why not consider limiting the lawyer's salary as well. Every poor medical outcome does not mean that someone should hit the jackpot with lawyers taking a third.

Since no one in Congress is considering tort reform as a way of reducing health care costs, perhaps they haven't thought of this yet. This is where you come in. Let your legislator know that litigation which doubles the cost of medical care is unacceptable. Please remember that lawyers make up the bulk of our federal legislators so using terms like 'blood sucking parasites' won't help get your point across.

Sorry if I offended anyone with this post.