The Horrible Truth About Tort Reform

The Con’s (Conservatives) insist that tort reform…limiting the amount anyone can sue for malpractice…is what is necessary to restrain health care cost. Let’s just sit back and think about frivolous lawsuits. When exactly do lawsuits become necessary? They become necessary when the defendant denies remedy to the plaintiff. All too often this is prompted, not necessarily by the defendant themselves but, from the liability insurer who insists that the plaintiff sue for any kind of relief.

Whether you’re a small business, big business, or a doctor, you pay for liability insurance. But, when an actual liability takes place your insurer goes into hiding, denying the claim, until the plaintiff brings what? A LAW SUIT! Then the game becomes delay. The insurance company knows the liability exists and that they have collected premiums for liability coverage. However, to delay the inevitable…they stall. Because they’re earning interest on the premiums as long as they have the money and you don’t. They make you as the plaintiff SUE them. They have settlement conferences and offer ridiculous settlements, and stall and stall, longer and longer. Maybe they go to “non-binding mediation,” and stall longer. It takes years for final settlement to come to fruition, in most instances. So, who is really responsible for the lawsuits?

Let’s just go to the next step. Let’s say the insurers are successful and finally get the state you live in or the federal government to pass and enforce tort reform that can limit the damages to say $300,000. ($300 grand seems to be the magic number in most states). Twice since I have lived in Texas a patient has gone to the surgery room because a limb has needed to be amputated only to have the wrong limb amputated. It’s supposed to be impossible. But, if your doctor, or nurse or technician happens to be inebriated or on drugs, or cold medicine, it’s very possible. If this tragedy happens to you, or your wife, or your son, or daughter, or father, or mother, or grandson, or granddaughter…is $300,000 enough? I don’t think so.

So, if you want to bring the cost of lawsuits down and address tort reform…let’s address it where it can make a difference, at the insurance company’s executive council. Let’s say to the insurance companies that when a claim is made and the insured has the coverage you pay it immediately instead of stalling for YEARS. And, if you don’t you’ll pay double the claim and the executive making the decision will spend a year or two in jail. Yes…that’s extreme and completely impossible to accomplish. But, if that was the penalty…maybe the cost of frivolous lawsuits might decrease.

When will we as a country figure out that the problem with health care, or even tort reform isn’t government...it’s the insurance industry.

Two of Seven

From Wikipedia...

“The Seven Deadly Sins, also known as the Capital Vices or Cardinal Sins, is a classification of the most objectionable vices which has been used since early Christian times to educate and instruct followers concerning (immoral) fallen man's tendency to sin. It consists of "Lust", "Gluttony", "GREED", "Sloth", "Wrath", "Envy", and "PRIDE".”

Because I grew up in the south attending a Southern Baptist Church every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evenings and every night when the spring, summer, winter and fall “revival” came to town I logged as many hours on the subject of “sin” as the human mind can endure. Garrison Keillor spins one story from the letters of Lake Wobegon about Brother Bob, a heavy drinking evangelist who “struggled with sin on a daily basis,” many of them being very bad days. Well, being something short of an expert, but not by much on the subject of sin, I think the events of these days demand comment on a couple of the seven deadly sins that the parishioners of Bed Springs Baptist Church, in Bumpschmuck, Oklahoma glossed over…GREED, and PRIDE.

The arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Gates in his own home by an armed police officer of Cambridge, Massachusetts is the basis for the first. What is now acknowledged to be an overreaction by pretty much everyone involved was a product of the sin of “pride” on the part of both of Officer Crowley and Professor Gates. This said, it is most unsettling that the police officer, James Crowley, stated he “wasn’t going to apologize,” because he did nothing wrong.

Officer Crowley… everyday people of good character offer apologies for events where they may not have done anything wrong. When we apologize for something that’s possibly not our fault we’re saying, at least, that we’re sorry it happened. But, clearly Officer Crowley felt no remorse for the event that took place. And, once it was apparent that the Officer was acting in an effort to actually protect Professor Gates' home, the professor should probably have exhibited some remorse too. Hopefully both parties will get the chance soon at the White House. However both reactions are products of PRIDE. And, it’s a sin that the self-righteous speed right by on their mad dash to the sin of lust.

I had an Uncle I greatly admired who was a County Sherriff. I was lucky enough to get to go work with him on several occasions. Even as a child I remember how he could defuse a confrontation. At his funeral one of the most moving testimonies to his life was an individual who was about to be arrested as a young teenager when my uncle gave him a choice. He could either go to jail, or join the army. The man, now growing old, credited the event with changing his life. The President is right…this is a teaching moment. And, the lesson is PRIDE is still one of the deadly sins.

Secondly, I spent a good part of my life working for a financial regulatory agency. I started my financial career in private commercial banking and migrated over to the governmental regulatory side. Today’s bankers, obviously, DO NOT GET IT. Getting paid enormous salaries, especially when they’ve lost money in recent quarters, and been bailed out by the Federal Reserve and the United State Treasury is nothing if not GREED. Now, I’m not even talking about the executives who make a million or two…I’m talking about the ones demanding 20 million to 120 million. During the Reagan Administration we were convinced that “greed was good.” The Republican Conservatives (I like to call them Con’s…not for convicts, but for confidence…because that’s what they play with us…a confidence game with phony arguments) convinced us that greed was fine inside the confines of capitalism. Well, GREED is another one of the deadly sins that my evangelical fundamentalist church members never thought deserved even an honorable mention as a sin. It just wasn’t as sexy as lust (pun definitely intended). It’s always been a mystery to me that wealthy businessmen never understood that if people on the bottom made more money…the wealthy would make more too. You know…the more customers there are the more products there are too sell. We all remember the story of Henry Ford wanting to pay his workers enough to buy his product. That’s about the easiest economic principle there is to understand. So it’s not as much about spreading the wealth as creating more customers. An executive of any company should have his pay tied to a multiple (whether is 30 times or 300 times) of the average wage of the non-managerial worker in his company. That way…everybody does better when everybody does better. Greed is NOT fine anytime. Just look where is got us…that’s why it’s one of the seven deadly sins.