White House press office FAIL of the day
White House: Where’s the GOP health care plan? Where’s the GOP healthcare plan?
GOP: Um, it’s linked right on your White House website.
White House: D’oh.
Thanks to the Save Jersey blog for the graphic that says it all. Snicker:
Background here from Daniel Foster who notes: “Ironically, this is perhaps the most exposure the Republican plan has so far received, and all it took was the Democrats saying that it didn’t exist.”
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From the House GOP plan:
Question: how is constitional for the federal government to limit what damages a plaintiff may be awarded in state court?
Hello? Left hand? Is that you? This is the right hand…. I have no idea what you’re doing there!
WhiteHouse: Well no wonder we couldn’t find it, it’s not on Huffpo!
Looks like they’ve changed the page since…
How are political parties constitutional?
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!! I AM THE GREAT – AND POWERFUL – OZAMA!!
Oh my God, Oh my God, these people are running the country!??!
We are so screwed. We are sooooo screwed.
We are doomed, I tell ya. DOOMED.
The same way it’s constitutional for the federal government decide how much CO2 can come out of my car.
Wow, that pesky Tenth Amendment keeps getting in the way, now doesn’t it.
I’d say it’s about as constitutional as an individual mandate, wouldn’t you say?
Everybody pays attention to what the federal government does without realizing their state has control over most of these things through the Tenth Amendment.
All politics is local.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce, which the Supreme Court has long interpreted as giving Congress the power to regulate what can be sold in interstate commerce.
Even if you disagree with the Court on this point, are you really arguing that it’s OK for Republicans to push for unconstitutional legislation because the Democrats do too?
Absolutely. The mandate doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell in court. Especially with today’s Supreme Court.
But again, do you really want to play the tit-for-tat game with the Constitution?
Well, this thread isn’t about that.
It’s about the fact that the White House is full of blithering idiots.
Nice hijack attempt, though.
OK a bit OT…
Obama is a smoker right? Heh…
Israeli study – “The smokers had significantly lower intelligence test scores than non-smokers, and this remained true even after the researchers accounted for socioeconomic status as measured by how many years of formal education a recruit’s father had completed.”
Uh-oh, folks.
Looks like one of the opposite-worldview holders that posts here at MM.com is trying to appear as a cautioning advisor to the rest of us.
They do that from time to time, putting on a masquerade of faux concern about the rest of us, lest we post something, or support something, that might not really be what we say we support.
Why should Democrats have all the fun? Let’s ban all abortions because medical supplies are shipped across state lines. Let’s ban gay marriage because flowers are shipped across state lines.
Frankly, I am surprised to hear a leftist lunatic mention the constitution since virtually none of them know it exists and even fewer know what is in it…
We were not supposed to notice this! If we were properly educated we wouldn’t!
Valerie Jarrett wants to educate us!
http://www.breitbart.tv/obamas-bff-likes-idea-of-simple-booklets-to...
Perhaps we can educate them…send them a simple booklet….a pocket U.S. Constitution!
(or a Deck of Royal Fools!)
I’m no lawyer, but I think the Eighth Amendment may be relevant:
I would suggest that any payments ordered beyond actual damages would effectively be a fine imposed by the court, and so limited to reasonable amounts under the Eighth Amendment.
But I’m just guessing here. There’s probably some case law that would be more relevant.
The excessive bail and fines clauses are the one of the only pieces of the Bill of Rights that the Supreme Court has not held to be incorporated against the states as well as the federal government. For whatever reason, they apply only to the feds. And even if they did apply to the states, that’s a question for the courts, not Congress, to decide. Congress derives all of its power from Article I of the Constitution.
The SC struck down the 18th amendment defense many moons ago to prevent excessive punative damages.
Meanwhile back at the White House. These two websites are illustrative of the “well-oiled” White House machine.
Any questions left on whether or not you think Tursday is a sham?
Hat tip to RSS for stealing the thread and deflecting us away from the main topic.
Maybe the gubmint could limit the amount of CO2 coming out of the mouths of libtards — like RSS or OwlGore.
SouthPaw! You kill me! I can’t stop laughing…I am in the office laughing uncontrollably!!
In the words of the title of the comic strip that gave tips of the hat:
“They’ll Do It Every Time”!
That being the case then it would appear that the federal government lacks such authority, meaning it would be up to the states. I would think this is a good argument against any nationalized health care since the individual consumer would not receive the benefit of large awards if the system were federal, and Article III is pretty clear about jurisdiction where the US is a party. Currently some states (Mississippi for example) are known for large awards on the theory that it is an incentive for more caution on the part of health care providers, while others (California for example) have limits on awards on the theory that it keeps costs down. Choose your home state according to your preference.
No joke! I really need to move somewhere that hasn’t passed tort reform, fake a medical issue, then get John Edwards to sue the doc. I’m pretty sure he has nothing better to do.
Since it is right there on the White House website it either was overlooked or it slipped past them./snort
another example of this white house’s total ineptness and just plain stupidity. Take one community rabblerouser, surround him with chicago machine thugs, and voila, you have a three ring circus.
What are you talking about? Mississippi passed comprehensive medical tort reform legislation (including the holy grail cap on non-economic damages back in 2003.
Of course, that did not stop health insurance premiums from increasing 101.9% over the last decade, higher than the national average.
It would be a recipe for Wacky! Zany! comedy, if it were not so depressingly dangerous and evil….
Southpaw – You made me laugh! Thanks. I believe NOTHING I see on Obama’s stupid website.
You mean to tell me that health care in states with tort reform isn’t half as much as states without? Come on.
Maybe I’m thinking about Louisiana; all of those southern states look alike.
You get the point, though, there are some states that have not enacted tort reform and it’s more stringent in some than others even among those that have enacted it. If the system goes national, it goes monolithic from sea to shining sea.
Obowmao:(*cough) Don’t bogart that! (*cough) And try not to get the end so wet! (*cough *cough)
Rahmen Noodle: (*cough) This some good $#!t (*cough) right here! (*cough)
Louisiana, since 1975, has an even harder cap, $500,000K for ALL damages (except direct medical costs) than most states that only cap non-economic damages.
Meanwhile, their premiums increased 82.3% over the last decade.
Heh, kinda like watching a chicken run around with its head cut off. Funny and a little grotesque at the same time.
It took me a while to find it, too. I just clicked on the links on the main WH Blog page. Here’s a link:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/bipartisan-meeting
Reading the blog post makes things even funnier. The White House acknowledges that the Repubs have planS, but they want A PLAN. One that all the repubs agree on.
This from the people that have a Democrat Senate plan, a Democrat House plan, and a Democrat Presidential plan.
Panic attack is the natural reaction I have (almost on a daily basis now), when I realize these people actually are running the country.
One can only draw one of two conclusions:
They are either pathological or pathetic.
And
So you agree with my actual point which is that different states have done different things with different results. Citizens are free to choose where they want to live based on any metric, including this one. Nationalizing the system will homogenize it so that there are no such choices, and so the federal government needs to drop the whole notion of trying to manage the health system so that the states will be free to manage the system in the manner most desired by their own populace.
I’m glad you see it my way.
I don’t think that those two descriptors are mutually exclusive!
Different results with respect to what, exactly?
Your point was that someone may choose a state with caps on the premise that it “controls costs”. I am assuming you were talking about health care costs there, but feel free to correct me if you were not.
Sorry, but the premise is flawed. The result, as it were, with tort reform as it has been experimented with in many, many states, is that it is an abject failure in controlling health care costs. You can look at states that have tort reform, and see very high rates of growth and see states that have no tort reform, where premium rates are growing more slowly. And vice versa. In other words, there is no correlation between the two. Which makes sense because direct and indirect tort costs represent a fraction of a fraction of health care spending in total.
And the difference between 82.3% and 101.9% most definitely had nothing to do with how the two states chose to deal with about 10-15% of total damages, which is the percentage of damages, on average, that end up being affected by a cap.
For example, in 2008 the total cost of malpractice payouts in the US was about $3.6 billion. Compare this to the $2.2 trillion spent in total on health care and you can see how futile it is to worry about such a fraction of a fraction.
Here is an article that discusses what defensive medicine costs each year:
http://bit.ly/9HwoAr
Imagine what you could do with that extra $650 BILLION a year. Ah, but that would hurt the Dem’s liberal lawyer voter base. So, nevermind!
Exactly! The federal government not only lacks the authority to impose tort reform nationally (apart from that Eighth Amendment thing maybe), it’s piddling small change anyway – as is any other discrete cost element involved – so leave it to the states. Let the federal government stick to its limited, enumerated powers like waging war and making treaties and so forth.
I never would have thought you’d be opposed to nationalizing anything, but I guess you are.
That may or may not be true, and I am dubious of a study:
1) commissioned by a company that staffs health care professionals;
2) that does not release the underlying data.
But even accepting that amount as true, it still does not necessarily follow that tort reform does or would have any impact on these practices. If there were a direct result between potential liability and ordering of tests, we would see significantly lower health care costs in states with tort reform (of which there are about 30 at different levels of severity). But my entire point is we do not see a difference. Study after study has shown this.
Think of it this way…what is the cost to a doctor of ordering a test? Nothing, right? He orders it, and someone else pays for it or the patient refuses it. Now, tell me how this cost is any different whether his potential liability is $1 million or $100,000. Even if you totally eliminated all liability for doctors (which no one is proposing, the cost to doctors for ordering these tests is exactly the same. Nothing. Actually, maybe worse than nothing because doctors often engage in self referral ands so have a distinct financial incentive to order tests, necessary or not.
there is an archaic intertube link named google that shows over 20,000 hits if you type in “republican health care plan”. d’oh indeed.
I wouldn’t. If the Doc is a woman, Edwards will want to screw the Doc…. and in the process, screw you too.
But alas….back to the point of this article. The White is Occupied by Idiots. Liberal Idiots.
If you want no limit on the amount of damages that a plaintiff may be awarded or you are supporting the 10th Amendment, I agree with you.
But the way the system structured, many frivolous lawsuits are filed with ease It’s like purchasing lottery ticket.
The solution to the problem is tort reform. Whoever loses should pay both sides attorneys fees plus court costs. Only strong cases would then go to trial, court dockets would be less congested, and justice would be served
Where can I find the section in the Constitution that says I must purchase health care insurance and subsidize health care insurance for others?
The original Ford Explorer tire blow out cases were heard down in the valley of Texas. Pretty soon we were getting every kind of drug, cigarette, slip and fall, product,etc. cases. Once it became obvious there was court shopping going on tort reform was ushered right in to include medical malpractice. Those folks were banking on winning the lottery through the courts.
Are you dubious of the statistics that you’ve been throwing out?
I think that’s the key. The tort reform measures you cite seem to merely cap damages.
Defensive medicine isn’t being driven by uncapped damages. It’s being driven by the mere threat of a resource draining lawsuit being filed.
chapoutier, do you have any data which suggests that fewer lawsuits are filed after tort reform is enacted? If not, then I think stronger tort reform measures are necessary. After all, access to health care is certainly more important.
No, I am not, or I wouldn’t be throwing them out. I went to the Jackson Health Care site and I couldn’t find any listing of the questions, definitions or cross tabs.
Not at all. Most states, including the ones I cited, enacted comprehensive packages that included other, less sexy, measures in them, including rules pertaining to expert testimony, rules pertaining to evidence of recovery from other sources, etc… at the same time as the cap.
I am aware of data showing significantly lower average awards. I am not aware of any showing fewer lawsuits in general, but it would not surprise me.
Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it? There simply is no significant link between the two.
It’s as plain as day, our White House is infested with a gaggle of complete morons. Literally.
Sounds weak.
Not yet according to you. Stronger tort reform measures seem to be needed.
Would you deny that? Don’t you want to see medicine practiced more efficiently?
Weak?
What sounds “strong” to you?
Maybe we should actually have the patient pay the doctor when the doc screws up. That would certainly bring lawsuits down.
White House: Where’s the GOP health care plan? Where’s the GOP healthcare plan? Where’s the freaking GOP plan!!!
GOP: Um, it’s linked right on your White House website.
D’oh
How about a system similar to that used by stockbrokers where all clients agree in advance to settle any disputes with binding arbitration.
Medical personnel and facilities could be authorized to have an agreement with their patients requiring them to submit all claims of malpractice to an arbitration panel.
That would remove most of the legal parasites, some of whom collect millions, and replace them with wiser minds who would likely only collect in the thousands.
Yes, since damage caps and rules of evidence modifications didn’t work we need to have the patient pay the doctor when the doc screws up.
I think you’re a good analyst, chapoutier, but you obviously suck at generating new ideas.
Any comments on Jersey Joe’s suggestion?
Well, since the extent of your idea generating up to this point can be summed up as simply “more” and since you are the one claiming the need for such, I hardly think it is fair to criticize me for failing to come up with something else.
But in any case, I have said many many times here that the average layperson is not qualified to determine true malpractice and that I think we should explore special med malpractice courts. For a number of technical reasons I think binding arbitration is an inferior solution.
None of this changes the fact that I still don’t think tort reform will have a significant effect on health care costs. Nor does it change the fact that your stance seems to stem from an a priori belief that tort reform is the solution, despite all evidence to the contrary. Evidence which you merely and conveniently dismiss as simply proof that it’s “not enough”. It reminds me of far leftists that argue Communism is sound in principle. It just hasn’t been done right yet.
Good point. That’s why I advocate eliminating the tax break for employer-provided insurance, and let the consumer see the costs more directly. That’s the only thing that will bring costs down without compromising quality of care that’s available.
Here’s the FAILblog submission:
http://cheezburger.com/View.aspx?aid=3221973760
1. “More” is better than ‘make the patient pay the doc if malpractice occurs.’
2. I was really just kidding you about the latter.
3. Do agree that there’s a need for such?
Great. You do seem to agree.
I concur. I think arbitration would make things worse.
That’s fine, but don’t claim that you can back that opinion up with data. More effective reforms can still be tried and might be successful.
What evidence? The only evidence you provide is that weak reform hasn’t been a great solution.
It’s inappropriate for you to extrapolate your evidence to apply to stronger reforms.
That’s the same as claiming Advil can’t relieve pain simply because a quarter tablet hasn’t demonstrated effectiveness. Try taking two tablets and see what happens.
Just because far leftists use this type of argument for Communism doesn’t mean that this type of argument isn’t valid for appropriate situations.
This argument is appropriate for the Advil situation. An easy to understand mechanism of action should give one the confidence to increase the dosage. The same is true with tort reform. The mechanism of action is obvious so a dosage increase should be attempted.
Communism demonstrates no such mechanism.
I guess that depends on one’s definition of “tort reform.” There is plenty of evidence that tort reform, as is currently being understood and debated, is ineffective. If you are talking about something more radical, like a special court, then I am not aware of any relevant data because it hasn’t been tried out in the US. But, in my opinion, if so called “defensive medicine” is a significant factor in health care costs, there are still several issues that are still present, no matter what particular form tort reform takes:
1) it is difficult to say, except in hindsight, whether a particular test or procedure or prescription is truly unnecessary, except in hindsight. If a doctor is ordering a test that he absolutely KNOWS is unnecessary because it has no chance of revealing anything of significance, then he is committing malpractice. But how often is that truly the case? Far more often the doc is pretty sure he knows that headache is just a headache, but can’t beyond all certainty, rule out a tumor. So…out comes the MRI machine. Of course, that test was unnecessary for the 99.99% of folks that will come back clean, but it certainly was not for the other .01%, and none of it is known until after the fact. If you want to promote a culture where people simply have to be more accepting that the outliers may not get caught as often, that is fine (and I would probably agree), but that is a cultural issue with Americans who insist on the best and most, no matter what the cost.
2) ordering these tests, procedures, or scrips is, at best, cost free to a doctor. And in fact he often will have financial gain (through self referral practices, which are becoming more and more common). When there is zero cost, and even the tiniest bit of potential reward for an action, who in their right mind would NOT do it? Are you expecting doctors to voluntarily stop acting rationally in their own self interest? Even removing all liability, a doctor, assuming he cares about professional reputation, would have incentive to order “unnecessary” tests for no other reason than he would probably prefer his patients not die, even if the chance of them doing so is small.
My initial reaction is that what you are proposing vis a vis what current tort reform measures are on the table is akin to comparing a quarter tablet of advil to fentanyl.
But, I’ll go with it….okay. Advil works by impairing the production prostalglandins, which are the cause of pain and inflammation. The causal connection between prostalglandins leads to inflammation leads to headache is firmly established. Even with a small dose of advil, you can measure a drop in prostalglandins. It may not be enough to stop the swelling and thus kill the headache, but it is at least working.
A better analogy to your two advil solution is that you are pushing Pill X, which has never been proven to cure headaches. When the patient complains that he is still hurting, rather than investigating whether Pill X actually reduces prostalglandins, you admonish him for only taking a quarter tablet instead of 2.
We have in the US dozens of states with varying levels of tort reform. Some levels are so weak as to be almost useless. Some are quite strong in the sense that they have had a real significant impact on malpractice payouts. None have shown to be effective in reducing health care costs significantly. I suppose that, rather than an inverse relationship between risk and defensive medicine, it is possible there is some quantum level of tort reform that will suddenly open the flood gates, so to speak. But reaching that level is certainly not without its own inherent cost, and certainly pretty risky when we don’t even know if it will ultimately have the desired effect.
No, it really is not.
Last point…
Just so it isn’t lost in the discussion of whether or not I think –any– tort reform is effective in controlling costs, I certainly support relatively radical reform.
Regardless of whether it would save a single penny on health care costs, there are intrinsic reasons why doctors should not work in constant fear of being second guessed by a 23 year old high school drop out on a jury, or be saddled with really expensive malpractice insurance.
As I said, I think we need special courts preferably paneled and judged by doctors, and knowledgeable lay people to make determinations of medical liability. The average person is not intellectually or emotionally capable of consistently knowing the difference between malpractice and an unfortunate result.
At the least, I would propose a panel that would automatically review any med mal case for threshold levels of evidence before it was sent on to our normal court system.
Caps, however, are wrong. They affect those who are most injured and aggrieved. Sometimes a doctor or hospital does deserve to pay through the nose. Look at Rhode Island Hospital, which performed surgery on the wrong side of the brain THREE times. In one year.
Maybe or maybe not. An adequate dose is need to trigger mechanisms.
But in order to gauge a drop in prostalglandins one would need to collect data on prostalglandins levels.
You just admitted that you don’t have any data regarding a drop in lawsuits. You only have data regarding healthcare costs. That’s the same only collecting data on Advi’s effectiveness to reduce pain.
So, again, you don’t know enough to make this determination.
I believe you do, and I believe you truly don’t think it will reduce healthcare costs.
I appreciate your sincerity, but I do think there’s a good chance to reduce healthcare costs via legal reform. However, I don’t believe it’s the silver bullet some might believe it is. Your points about doctor incentives are germane.
Btw, have you done any analysis of removing state specific regulations for health insurance? What do you think? Any cost savings there?
No. I also have data showing significant reductions in overall jury awards. Whether or not you go by it with respect to reduction in overall lawsuits or reduction in payouts for suits that are brought, the end result is the same, no? An overall reduction in the risk (in monetary terms) a doctor faces.
But in any case, just quickly checking The Google, I found that in the year after tort reform was passed in Texas, lawsuits in Harris County (i.e., Houston) dropped by well over half.
So my point remains that Texas say a profound reduction in med mal costs (both in terms of direct payouts) and in terms of malpractice insurance premiums. And no corresponding effect on health care premiums. Admittedly, looking at premium costs is a bit of a blunt tool. I would much rather see some data on direct heath care costs incurred. But 1) premiums are the cost most people are most directly affected by; and 2) if we are to believe the insurance companies, there should be a direct relationship between the two.
If it is the case that tort reform significantly reduced the rate of health care spending in Texas while at the same time premiums rose by almost 100% in a decade, then I will become the biggest champion of severe tort reform there is so long as the right doesn’t complain about equally severe restrictions on the obviously predatory and disingenuous private health companies.
No. That is a bit too much “in the weeds” for me. I assume you are referring to doing this so that you can open up interstate competition. I’ve no doubt costs would be at least somewhat controlled if someone in Rhode Island had more of a choice than between United and Blue Cross.
No. That’s like saying that any reduction of prostalglandins is the same end result as reducing pain.
If defensive medicine is caused by the threat of a lawsuit (even a dismissible lawsuit – regardless of the potential damage award) then the threat of a lawsuit needs to be reduced in order to reduce the cost of defensive medicine.
Overall, I think you’ve given up on legal reforms too quickly.
The threat of lawsuit is twofold. How often and how much. If you think there is a significant difference between the reduction of one as opposed to the other, fine, I won’t argue. Because regardless, both parts of the equation have been significantly affected by tort reform in Texas. Here is another source saying that claims have been reduced by half.
By half. And I have seen studies estimating the reduction in payouts ranges from 27% to 67% (let’s go with the 27%)
Half the claims and at least a quarter of the monetary liability. And yet Texas went from ranking 33rd in the country in 2002 in terms of insurance premiums costs to ranking…33rd in 2008, five years later and well after the effects of reform had taken hold.
I am just wondering what numbers you think we’ll need to hit before we see tort reform significantly reflecting health reform. Because pretty soon you are talking about eliminating entirely legitimate claims.
How often is the key. Do you have data for Texas other than that one county?
I don’t think “pretty soon” is accurate. I think there’s still quite a bit of room.
I provided a link showing four of Texas’s largest population areas in terms of population showed a 50% drop. I can’t imagine why any other part of the state would show a dramatically different rate.
You think over half of all med mal claims are junk? And I am not talking about cases where there is a legitimate question of whether or not there may have been malpractice, but the doctor is ultimately exonerated. I think you would agree that someone can sincerely and legitimately believe they have a claim, but ultimately lose.
Doing some quick math, the metro areas in the article represent almost 60% of the entire population of Texas. So suffice to say, even if the reduction in number of suits were significantly lower in the rest of the state, overall it would still be an impressive number statewide.
Sorry, I didn’t notice the link.
Yes, I don’t think a 50% drop is enough. But I think that even a 50% drop in filings will help cut costs over time.