Reply #30: Great points. We already have a model for what you call "tort reform". [View All]

[Hamlette]

I'd advocate moving much of our tort cases (personal injury lawsuits, including medical malpractice,} to a system like workers' compensation. It is a no fault system. If you get injured on the job you get wage replacement, medical expenses, and a smallish but not unreasonable payment for permanent disability. If you dispute what the insurance pays, you go to an administrative hearing with independent administrative law judges who do only workers' compensation so they know what they are dealing with. Case is over in a couple of months at very little cost.

Same could work for medical malpractice. People see lawsuits as a winning lottery ticket (trust me) and believe they will get rich. If they knew all they were get was compensated for their loss, far fewer of them would fight it out. Car accidents should be handled the same way, through an administrative process. (Can you tell I do administrative law? I worked all three sides of workers' compensation for 10 years, I now do unemployment and welfare. It's a great system. I worked in "regular" courts for 10 years before and that system, sucks, even though for what it is may be the best we can think up.)

We still need a tort system for "punishment" value: companies that act badly by selling unsafe products, and for malpractice you would need to insure that the profession policed itself. If not, you might need a governmental agency to do it (like OSHA does for employers) or to beef up licensing agencies. For car accidents the criminal courts "police" bad actors.

Two statistis that shape my position (single payer) on this:

1. The US pays more per capita for health care than any other country in the world yet we rank 37th in terms of quality of care. People in 36 countries get better health care than we do.

2. 95% of the health care costs you will incur in your life you will incur in the last 2 years of your life. We might, as a society, have to make some hard decisions. My father had expensive treatments and surgeries in his final years that did not improve the quality of his life but might have prolonged it slightly (a few months?). We should never have agreed to it.