Why?

You’ve argued eloquently about “market failure” in the medical insurance market. What’s wrong with having a publicly funded alternative to treat people who are “unprofitable” to the health care insurance industry?

I think you can see where I’m going with this…

You’ve jumped to a conclusion for which you have absolutely no substantiation. It’s widely accepted that there is overuse of medical services by providers. However, there is no evidence that fear of malpractice suits is substantial cause of this overuse. There is also no evidence that even if fear of malpractice suits was the cause of overuse that tort reform would result in less overuse.

Providers typically follow a standard of care that does not vary from state to state. That is, doctors generally prescribe whatever treatment is recognized nationally as the most efficacious. Those doctors in states without tort reform do not deviate from the nationally recognized standard because they know they will have lower liability in the event of a malpractice suit. And those doctors in states with tort reform also don’t deviate by offering more than the standard because they fear greater liability in a malpractice suit. Moreover, insurance companies won’t pay for services that are not reasonably medically necessary.

I’m sorry, but it’s pure nonsense to suggest that tort reform will have a signficant affect on the overuse of medical services. There simply is no evidence of this.

Your response does not address the issue raised by Reason60 in #33. No one questions whether the USPS requires federal funds; it certainly does and a history on USPS litigation is needed to confirm what we all already know.

The issue is whether the USPS, as a federally-subsidized entity, has run FedEx and UPS out of business, which is what you seem to fear will happen with a public option. Well, it’s abundantly clear that the federally-subsidized USPS has not run FedEx, UPS or any other private company out of business, and there’s no reason to think a public option will run private insurers out of business.

Again, the proof of this is the public option in the California workers compensation market. Until you reconcile that real life example with all the predictions about a public option, your concerns are nothing more than hyperbolic doomsday fear.

See Kanzeon’s post at # 15.

The CBO is only allowed to estimate the cost of the Congressional proposals they are given. They can’t question whether those proposals will be enacted as is, or amended later.

In this case, the CBO is correct that the Baucus bill will not add to the deficit and perhaps even slightly reduce it–if that bill is signed into law as is, and never amended over its projected life span.

But you and I know that’s highly unlikely. The Baucus bill takes hundreds of billions of dollars away from Medicare. Do you really believe Congress will allow that? Have they ever cut Medicare before?

But the biggest cost by far is doctors’ overuse of antibiotics and lab tests to protect against possible malpractice lawsuits. The problem is that if a doctor fails to order a particular lab test, and you get sick, you could sue the doctor for failing to order the test that could have detected your illness in time to cure it. So they are constantly ordering a zillion screening tests for conditions you would probably never suffer from anyway–or if you did, you could be cured readily.

The current controversy over PSA screening for prostate cancer is a perfect example of this. The test isn’t very sensitive–it has about a 20% rate of false positives. That means that urologists are telling millions of American men that they could have prostate cancer when they really don’t. To make sure and avoid possible malpractice suits, the urologist has to order an expensive prostate biopsy (and most of the time, the biopsy will turn out negative).

Here’s a new report that analyzes just where the waste in our current healthcare system is. It’s in the practice of medicine, not in the courts:

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE59P0L320091026

And it’s even MORE costly than I thought.

If you like it, save a copy on your own computer because I have a feeling it won’t be around much longer.

And no one in his right mind expects Congress to cut Medicare. There have been attempts, year in and year out, to rein in Medicare spending. All failed. All will continue to fail. No politician is going to buck the senior voters.

If you take out those hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts, the real cost will be far higher.

The CBO is not allowed to question the Congress’ stated plans. All they can do is cost them. They are not allowed to say, as I just did, that Pelosi is lying about those Medicare cuts.

But everybody except you knows she is. Even her fellow liberals.

You liberals have the votes in Congress, you’ve got a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate if you can pay off Lieberman. So do it yourselves.

For us conservatives, the public option is a deal-breaker. It is absolutely unacceptable. That’s non-negotiable. We’ll fight it to the end, and lose the fight if we have to–because we absolutely cannot accept it.

And that’s final.