Insurance Reform

In my search for information on healthcare reform this week I have come across a memo from President Barack Obama for the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The memo can be seen in its entirety by following the following link: http://www.healthreform.gov/newsroom/memorandum/medicalliability.pdf

I find it interesting, though not surprising, that healthcare reformation and the current medical liability system go hand in hand.

In the memo it is stated that between 44,000 and 98,000 patients die each year from medical errors. These numbers may be true, but there are several words I would like to see added to the phrase "die each year from medical errors", and then see what the numbers are. Intentional is one, or preventable, avoidable, foreseeable, the list goes on. Yes, people die from medical mistakes. Yes, some of those mistakes are avoidable. Yes, doctor's are human and make mistakes, so why is it that when they do they are to not be allowed those errors? For every mistake that occurs with regard to patient care there is a potential lawsuit. From a paralegal student perspective, that is a good thing. It means lots of work for attorneys, which means they need to hire lots of paralegals. From a personal standpoint, and with a family member working within the medical industry, and in the direct line of fire of such lawsuits, this is not such a good thing.

In the memo there is a mention of the high cost of medical malpractice insurance and the need for doctors to practice defensive medicine. I know of instances where practicing defensive medicine has caused the demise, near demise, or deteriorated condition of a patient. All of the situations could or would have had a different outcome if the medical personnel could have been more concerned with the matter at hand than the worry of what that would mean in terms of a lawsuit. If the doctor works quickly and the patient dies, the doctor is at fault for moving too quickly. If the doctor takes the slower route to extinguish all possibilities and the patient dies, the doctor is at fault for not moving quickly enough. If a risky elective procedure is performed, such as gastric bypass, and there are complications, the doctor is at fault, even though it was purely the patient's choice to undergo the procedure and take the risk knowing the risks involved.

After reading this memo I began to wonder, is there really a need for government healthcare? I do believe there is a need for reform, but would it be better and more cost effective for the reformation to be within the insurance and judicial systems rather than the medical system? Yes, there are measures in place to reduce the filing of frivolous lawsuits, and this is a start. My definition of frivilous, anything that any person of reasonable intelligence and training could and should have been able to avoid. Example: A Florida man has his right leg amputated, his left leg had gangrene and was the one that should have been removed. Gangrene is a rotting of the flesh with a discoloration and odor associated with it. Even if the doctor could not read, he should have been able to see that the leg he was removing was not discolored. If the doctor could not read and was blind, he probably should not have been operating in the first place.

I believe there should be a bit of room for error in the medical profession. If you are a baseball player and throw a wild pitch that hits somebody in the chest and causes their heart to stop are you sued for wrongful death? Probably not. It may sound callous, but accidents happen and people are human, and therefore not infallible.

The following link is for a medical malpractice website and gives a pretty good definition of medical malpractice and how broad of an idea it is, which makes a medical malpractice lawsuit for about any reason possible.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/medical-malpractice-lawsuits.html

While typing I had a thought. What if instead of the doctors carrying the insurance there was a provision in our own medical insurance that covered us in the case of medical malpractice? I don't mean the gleaming errors that are obviously the fault of a medical individual, but the ones that occurred simply because there was not enough information, or because somebody made a simple, honest mistake.

Just as a side note, I found the disclaimer at the end of the memo rather interesting.

I need an aspirin!

Healthcare reform is an issue in the forefront these days. President Obama has proposed a 1,017 page bill to congress and is now waiting to see the outcome. There is much anticipation about private healthcare going public.

There are some personal issues I have with government run healthcare. I have listed 4 to get things started:

1.) On page 29 of the reform bill it states that healthcare will be rationed. It is my understanding that this means if the government decides there should only be 10 heart transplants a year and your son or daughter, or anybody, is the 11th, they will have to wait until the following year to have their heart transplant. The reason for this is the government will only allow so much money to go toward medical services and once that amount of money has been capped, there won't be any more until the next year.

2.) On page 30 it is stated a government committee will decide treatments and benefits. There will be no appeals. I don't think there is anybody who would not agree with me that this is a bad idea. No appeals? Really? How many times have people been misdiagnosed, or an alternative treatment has been found, or one treatment didn't work so another one was tried, then another, then another, until finally something did work. How many people have been on one medication without the desired results so the medication or dosage was changed? Yes, in my opinion this whole approach is just a bad idea.

3.) One thing I had always believed was that there would be government provided healthcare and private healthcare and people could decide which they wanted to participate in. On page 84 it is stated that there will be government control over private healthcare and the private healthcare companies MUST participate in the Healthcare Exchange. What is the point in having the private insurance if it must behave just like the government provided one?

4.) On page 145 it is stated that an employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government run public plan. There are no alternatives. What would this mean in the scenario that one person has private healthcare and their spouse gets a new job. If that person is automatically enrolled in the public plan is that the plan they must use or can they continue to use the private policy their spouse has?

Obviously there are many more issues pertaining to healthcare reform. These four are just a few, and just from 145 pages of the over 1,000 page document.

Over 30 years ago I had a family memeber who went on welfare for a period of a few years. She would have been free from the welfare system sooner if it were possible to purchase the insurance that welfare recipients receive at no cost. The working American public is already paying for that plan, why can it not be available for purchase? I have heard of a lot of people that have quit their jobs and gone on welfare to get the insurance. How is this beneficial to anybody? These have usually been cases of terminally ill people or people with life long medical conditions, but the family members could not afford the treatments and medications paying the deductibles of private insurance. If they could have purchased Medicaid they would still be working and providing money to the government in the form of income tax rather than taking from it.

Yes, healthcare is a problem in this country with so many people not covered. Any comments, views, or ideas on the matter would be appreciated.