Healthcare is a business and all businesses face the same question that is being posed to doctors in the healthcare system reform bill … “receive less pay for the work you perform”. Like any business when a revenue stream decreases one of two countermeasures must be enacted to offset the decrease in revenue; reduce expenses or increase the quantity of work performed. Many doctors do not have the ability to increase the patients they see, there are only so many hours in the day, and decreasing expenses may work for some but not all doctors involved in the proposed cut.
A logical reduction in expenses can be administered by the Obama administration. Reduce physician liability in tort cases. A very low cap on punitive damages will reduce doctors’ insurance premiums and may offset the reduction in payments received from patients in the proposed healthcare reform.
A reduction in punitive damages extended to the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals, medical device makers may also reduce costs that can be passed along to pay for healthcare reform. The only group that will not approve of such reduction is tort lawyers … darn.
There is no reason that such tort reform cannot be implemented. This is not to say that an injured person cannot claim economic damages in a legal case, but the punitive damages would be capped. An additional benefit from such a reform to tort liability may be reduced lawsuits brought by those that are looking at punitive damage awards as their own personal lottery.
