Dr. Scott Haig, writing in Time magazine, has some blunt, important advice for those who say they want healthcare reform. This is definitely worth the read. Among Dr. Haig’s targets is the negative impact of lawsuits against doctors on the uninsured (emphasis is mine):
From where we sit (and doctors think they’re the ones who are in the best position to know what malpractice means and when it happens), there is little or no correlation between doing bad stuff and getting sued. We also observe that none of the countries whose medical systems are held up to us as better than ours has any malpractice system at all. And the cost of defensive medicine is enormous — much higher than published estimates.
We’re also much less likely to do charity work when we can lose our homes in the process. This is a serious problem for the uninsured. Most doctors are pretty decent folk who actually like what they have spent their lives learning to do, and they wouldn’t mind doing some free work. As a group, though, we tend to be quite risk averse. We worry about the downside — it’s where we live. Our insurance premiums can be crushing: it’s $240,000 a year for a neurosurgeon in New York now. One way or another, it’s an expense that gets passed down to all. Can our country afford this luxury at this time? Want more medical care for less money? Get the lawyers out of our garden, and find a better way to sanction bad practices without damaging everyone.