Friday, February 26, 2010

Med Malpractice/Tort Reform's Benefits

We all know that Obamamamama was less than accurate during his lectures yesterday.

He claimed, erroneously, that ObamaCare V 3.0 would 'not change' health-plan design. Perhaps he didn't read the CNN breakdown which made clear that it WOULD change plan design in Year Five.

Obamamama also ws a little short on numbers accuracy regarding malpractice/tort reforms.

Obama said today that tort reform would only save $5 billion a year, but Coburn replied this evening that tort reform would, in fact, do the most to save consumers money.

"The biggest cost driver that accounts for this 33% [of health care waste] is defensive medicine," Coburn said. Obama's figure, based on a CBO report, doesn't take into account all the tests doctors needlessly order to avoid lawsuits.

"You fix the tort system in this country and you’ll cut costs like crazy. It’s $250 billion a year in defensive medicine costs," Coburn said. "If you just got rid of half of that, in one year you’d cut everyone’s cost of health care five percent."

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