Reply #18: ... [View All]

Insurance companies are simply creditors who need a required ROR for their investors. They're not going to behave responsibly, and unfortunately, trying to reform that sector is more difficult than reforming healthcare.

Tbirulent attacks against trial lawyers are simply because they are an easy and identifyable target. There are some firms that have learned techniques to basically hold providers ransom, and while they do not account for a huge portion of the cost, they do influence how others law firms do business. Its basically a race to the bottom. This area needs to be reformed. Personally I have been very frustrated in trying to stop some long standing practices. For example, when one looks at the cost of a claim, we have to count not only the compensation for the plaintiff atty, but also your own atty. Its very difficult to justify a scenario where you pay the your own atty 100K, you pay the plaintiff 80K and the plaintiff atty gets 70K. It makes no sense. Legal expenses account for almost 50% of the cost of claims. That's just one example, there are more.

There are no culprits and there are no saints in this equation. The reason this situation is allowed to exist is because everyone makes money from it. Claims drag on for years, depleting management resources away from the very thing that they are trying to achieve and prevent claims.

Personally, I believe that there should be no caps of any sort. However, every claim must be arbitrated and mediated before clearing some very high hurdles to litigate. Most injured parties just want to be made whole.

This would not be such a big problem with universal health care.