/----/ Easiest and fastest way to reduce health care costs is to reform the tort laws. Get the lawyers out of the picture and the costs will plummet.
That
SOUNDS just
'WONDERFUL'! Let me give you a dose of reality:
The S.C. State Legislature, after being pressured by Insurance Company lobbyists who argued what you just did, changed the laws regarding the ability for patients to sue doctors / hospitals for Malpractice.
FLASH FORWARD:
Mamma Easy has to have surgery on her back to release pressure on her spine due to a pinched nerve. She goes to a prominent doc in S.C. and is told this will be a simple procedure. When she wakes up in the hospital she is in pain OFF THE CHART - so much that she is out of her mind almost screaming the whole time for nearly 3 straight days while they try to figure out what is going on. They finally figure out her body is rejecting what they did to her and the hospital had been givng her 3 pain meds they knew she was highly allergic to.
Long story short(er): A company called Medtronics makes medical devices that have no patens and devices they pay doctors to use in surgeries - without telling the patients. Her doc lied to her - he performed 45 minutes of the surgery then let 2 Medtronic doctors using a robot implant an experimental device in her spine after severing her spine. This all came out when a judge demanded the doctor turn over ALL of the documents Mamma Easy was entitled to but that they had been hiding. (Medtronic, BTW, has been sued nation wide in several class-action lawsuits and have paid out millions...but they make so much money they don't care and prefer to settle if they have to.)
When Mamma Easy tried to get help from any doctor afterwards they shunned her due to her filing a medical malpractice suit...HERSELF. Doctors would not help her or talk to her, and Lawyers would not touch her case. One lawyer finally told her:
Almost EVERY doctor is covered by the same Insurance company / Union of Insurance companies, and these insurance companies have told doctors across the state that they (doctors) WILL NOT provide any support to a plaintiff in a case like Mamma Easy's or they just might find themselves without Insurance and unable to get any. The lawyer told her that the decision and change in laws made by the State of S.C., after being pressured by lobbyists to make it harder to sue doctors in order to 'lower the cost of medical care', made all of this possible.
Mamma Easy is now suing the doctor on her own, acting as her lawyer, against 4 to 5 high-priced lawyers defending Medtronics and the doctor. The Judge has allowed her case to continue, much to the opposing lawyers' anger. Good news is several law firms - firms that turned her down - heard about this, her acting as her own lawyer....and she has been getting anonymous tips and advice on how to proceed with certain aspects / steps to help her case. LOL!
Mamma Easy is representing all the citizens who have been screwed by doctors and huge medical companies like Medtronics, caught up in the BS claim that making it harder for victims to sue them will lower costs for everyone. Mamma Easy will be in severe pain for the rest of her life, will be unable to get around / stand more than 20 - 25 minutes for the rest of her life, and the doctor and the medical company who used medical experimentation on her without informing her is being protected by an enabling state govt all in the name of 'making it harder to sue doctors so the cost of medical care will go down'.
Question:
If 'medical care' is allowed to turn into what happened to Mamma Easy, who the hell cares if it is 'affordable' or not if the results are the same as what happened to her?
College "Education" Is a Fraud That Must Be Replaced With Highly Paid Professional Training
If all you slaves jealous of talent believe that college should be work without pay in order to punish those who will get rewarded for it, you deserve the kind of doctors you get. They are bitter little Mamas' Boys who didn't earn a living until they were 26 because they were afraid to grow up. The result of that is incompetence and bribe-taking. After 8 years of college slavery, the MD comes out obsessed with making as much money as he can, as fast as he can, any way he can.
I paid a college a 'gross' amount of money to 'teach' me and prepare me for a career. The 1st 3 years they really did not provide me with any training I did not already have / did not get from the advanced high school I attended that taught college-level classes the last 2 years.
When I became a Senior in college I paid the college my 'tuition' but worked as an UNPAID intern for a company. One of my ideas used by the company netted the guy I worked for a bonus of about $10k...I got an 'A'. The point here is that the University did not teach me what I needed for my career (that I never used because I went into the military for the next 30 years) - the Company I worked for did.
A long time ago companies used to have internship programs where they would teach people all the skills they needed and how to do the job as long as they agreed to stay with the company for 5 years (or so, just an example). NO massive college debt - straight up paid job where you were taught everything you needed for your career.
IMO, a lot more of that is what is needed today.