What about the lawyers?

Conspicuously missing from the current debate on reforming health care in the United States is the role of lawyers and frivolous lawsuits in driving up the cost of medical care. Maybe it's because so many members of Congress and the Obama Administration are themselves lawyers. This letter to the editor, originally published in The Pottstown Mercury, raises some good questions.

Tort reform is a crucial element of reforming U.S. health care

Wouldn't it be nice if President Obama's 10-year, $634 billion health care plan (revised to $1.5 trillion and growing) could be enacted without burdening the taxpayer with so much as one additional dollar? Actually, it can ... with billions to spare.

In 2006, the annual Tort Tax on our economy was estimated at $865 billion*. This is the equivalent of a $9,800 tax on a family of four.

What is the Tort Tax? Simply put, it is a combination of "static costs" such as jury awards and attorney fees, and, "dynamic costs" which include such things as defensive medicine, lost productivity due to preventable illness and death, and foregone innovation.

In today's America, "better mouse traps" languish in R&D or are licensed overseas as a direct result of our predatory litigation climate. In the area of healthcare, this translates into thousands of needlessly lost lives.

The cost of defensive medicine, those unnecessary tests and procedures designed to mitigate malpractice claims, is estimated at over $125 billion per year. This burden forces some 3.4 million Americans onto the rolls of the uninsured. Just cutting this unnecessary expense in half would make a sizable down payment on the President's healthcare initiative.

Any health care plan which does not include tort reform as "the" central component is not to be taken seriously. While the outright regulation of attorney fees would be premature, a good start would be the adoption of "Loser Pays" tort reform and the replacement of juries with panels comprised of judges. These measures have worked exceedingly well elsewhere on the globe in reducing the tort tax. Noticeably excused however from White House "strong-arming" at a recent healthcare summit was trial attorney representation.

The question that we should be asking of our elected representatives, in my case attorneys all, is this: What have you done to place the financial and physical well-being of your constituents before the interests of your fellow attorneys? To date, the answer is, nothing. A specific examination of Obama, Specter and Casey fundraising coffers reveals why. Not a one would hold public office today without the largesse of a 1-800-LAW-SUIT industry predisposed to crippling our healthcare system and our economy.

*Source Material: "The Tort Tax"/WSJ/March '07/Authors McQuillan & Abramyan

MARK FURLONG
North Coventry