Business Advice
is your arsenal for developing and maintaining sound financial plans and business strategy.
Inside: Budgeting | Compensation | Valuation
Free Trial: Intuit QuickBooks
Simple Start Free Edition 2009 for Windows
Departments
Fresh Inc.
September 29, 2004
No One Asked Me But...
No One Asked Me But...
Posted by Adam Hanft at 1:23 PM
Doesn't Anybody Care About Health Care?
What's the number? Is it 30 million Americans who are not covered by health insurance? Thirty-five million? Whatever the dismal reckoning, what astounds me is that no major American corporation has embraced it as a cause.
They've line up behind breast cancer and prostate cancer and AIDS and childhood obesity. But I don't know of one company that is making this part of their good corporate citizen mission.
The possibilities are endless. Major corporations could be a voice for communicating the seriousness of the problem and the need for innovative
solutions. They could help fund health insurance for families who need it as part of their corporate giving. They could help their employees "adopt" other families.
The curious silence on this front makes me wonder. Is the subject of health insurance radioactive because big companies don't want to call attention to their own shabby records? That would be a tragedy. The biggest public health crisis in America needs corporate friends, and the fact that they're willing to get behind far tinier problems is troubling, mystifying and a massive lost opportunity.
Where is the company with the courage to come forward?
Try a RISK-FREE Issue of Inc. Today!
Select Services
- Home |
- Contact Us |
- About Us |
- Subscribe |
- Advertise Online |
- Legal Disclaimers |
- Media Kits |
- Press |
- Privacy Statement
Copyright © 2009 Mansueto Ventures LLC. All rights reserved. Inc.com, 7 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007-2195
Mansueto Digital Network: Inc.com | FastCompany.com | IncBizNet.com | IncTechnology.com | FastCompany.tv
This is America. The land of make your own opportunity. Not the land of freebies. The difference between someone with breast cancer and someone with no insurance is vastly different. One deals with a disease that comes without warning and the other social ignorance. What should a corporation fund America's uninsured ignorance?
Go to Canada.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and he will never go hungy.
If you want everyone to be insured the rates should be lowered. If you want the rates lowered stop the astronomicaly stupid malpractice lawsuits that are driving up healthcare costs. It is time for people to take responsibility and stop waiting for the next handout.
Read:
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/news/opinion/6760762.htm
and this excerpt from
http://www.nashp.org/_docdisp_page.cfm?LID=05181D11-A4A8-11D6-BD1700A0CC76FF4C#rising
The Medical Malpractice Insurance Crisis:
Opportunity for State Action
©July 2002
Funded by
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
__________________________________________________________________________
Executive Summary
Rapidly rising medical malpractice insurance premiums and the departure of many insurance companies from the medical malpractice market have created a crisis of affordability and availability in certain areas of the country. State efforts to address the emergency have been hampered by the paucity of conclusive data on the causes and effective solutions to the problem. While an increase in litigation and higher damage awards are often blamed for rising premiums, insurance companies may be equally culpable due to their pricing policies of the 1990s. Furthermore, the move toward more restrictive tort reform does not address the complexity of the problem. Previous rounds of tort reform that followed the malpractice insurance crises of the 1970s and 1980s have not succeeded in preventing periodic and dramatic rises in insurance premiums. And tort reform does not address the important and related issues of patient safety and medical errors.
Conflicts among insurance companies, the medical profession, and trial lawyers are inherent to the debate over how to solve the crisis and often create a chilling effect on efforts to improve patient safety. While a full and open disclosure of medical errors is seen as an essential step in addressing the issue of patient safety, doctors and hospitals resist reporting errors for fear of increased malpractice litigation. One promising approach to the problem may be contained in a comprehensive legislative initiative developed in Pennsylvania, an initiative that combines tort and insurance reforms with patient safety initiatives and reporting requirements.
The United States is going through its third medical malpractice crisis in as many decades. Medical malpractice insurance premiums, which had been stable for over a decade, are rising across the country, in some areas dramatically. In addition, many insurance companies are reducing coverage or withdrawing completely from the malpractice market. This is leaving doctors in certain areas of the country, especially those practicing in high risk specialties (e.g., obstetrics, orthopedics, neurosurgery), facing extremely high insurance premiums, unable to find coverage at any price, or having to opt for the most expensive coverage of last resort. Alarming reports of doctors retiring or moving to other states, dropping high-risk patients and procedures, and practicing defensive medicine abound. There is a growing clamor for states to do something about this latest crisis.
The issue is polarizing and the debate acrimonious. Insurers and doctors blame "predatory" trial attorneys, "frivolous" law suits, and "out of control" juries for the spike in insurance premiums. In turn, consumer groups accuse insurance companies of "price gouging," while plaintiffs' attorneys point to an exorbitant rate of medical errors and the need to deter malpractice and provide compensation to injured patients. This animosity and defensiveness create a closed environment and impede state efforts to address broader issues of patient safety. Medical malpractice is not the same as medical error, yet the malpractice crisis has created an environment of distrust that spreads to include all efforts to improve patient safety. Litigation in some cases may simply be a symptom of distrust in an environment where all errors are kept secret.
The discussion of possible solutions is equally contentious. Insurers and physicians demand tort reform, changes in the legal system that will limit the frequency of litigation and the amount of damage awards. Attorneys argue that past legal reform has unfairly blocked victims' access to the courts while doing nothing to bring down the costs of malpractice insurance. They see the solution in regulation of the insurance industry. Patient advocates focus on safety and suggest mandatory reporting of medical errors and a no-fault approach to victim compensation.
Medical Malpractice Insurance Crisis
The data are inconclusive as to the causes of rapidly rising medical malpractice insurance premiums. While there are reported increases in frequency and severity of medical malpractice claims, the underpricing of malpractice premiums throughout the 1990s and a downturn in the stock market exacerbated by Sept 11 attacks are also to blame.
The data are inconclusive as to whether there has been an increase in medical malpractice claims greater than that which corresponds to growth in population, an increase in the number of doctors and hospitals, or growth in technological advancements.
Because of the reluctance to report errors, the data are inconclusive as to whether any increase in malpractice claims corresponds to an increase in incidents of medical malpractice or medical errors.
The data are inconclusive as to the efficacy of tort reform as remedy for periodic malpractice insurance crises. Previous rounds of tort reform have not prevented periodic malpractice insurance crises. Tort reform does not address the issue of patient safety.
Medical errors are a serious and costly problem, killing between 44,000 and 98,000 people annually in the United States. Total national cost of medical errors is estimated to be between $17 billion and $29 billion annually. 1
The great majority of patients injured by medical negligence do not file a malpractice claim and of those who do file only a third receive any compensation for their injuries.
The interests of the states straddle the divide. States want quality medical care and hospital services to be accessible throughout their jurisdictions and are concerned that medical liability insurance be available and affordable for all providers. States also want to see medical errors reduced or eliminated, while making sure that patients who are injured, either by error or malfeasance, can be fairly compensated. The challenge facing the states—to determine the cause and find a solution to this pressing and complicated problem—is made that much more difficult by the crossfire of accusations and dearth of empirical research. Is there really a litigation explosion? How extensive is medical malpractice? Has the latest crisis been instigated by the insurance industry as a strategy to push through tort reform? Where should the states focus their attention? Reforms aimed at patient safety? The legal system? The insurance industry?
This latest medical malpractice insurance crisis offers an opportunity to state policy makers to take a comprehensive approach and address patient safety and medical errors in addition to tort reform and insurance regulation.
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Understanding the Crisis
"...deja vu all over again."
–Yogi Berra
What has come to be known as the medical malpractice insurance crisis is cyclical, having recurred three times in the past 30 years 2. The recent dramatic increases in malpractice premiums have hit some areas and specialties harder than others. For a variety of reasons, malpractice insurance premiums vary widely throughout the United States with doctors paying vastly different amounts depending on their specialty, geographic location, and history of malpractice claims. For example, according to the Medical Liability Monitor, an obstetrician practicing in Florida can pay as much as $200,000 for an annual malpractice premium, whereas the same specialist would pay $73,000 in New Jersey and $25,000 in Maine.3 The range for annual premiums for physicians of internal medicine is between $3,000 in Arkansas to $50,000 in Florida.4 West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Texas, and Nevada have all recently been the subject of alarming news articles and ominous projections about the effects of the rise in malpractice premiums. 5
The issue is not only one of cost, but also of availability. The problem of high premiums has been compounded by insurance companies failing and going out of business or ceasing to offer medical malpractice policies.
Back to top
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why Are Premium Costs Rising?
Frequency and severity of malpractice claims?
During each of the previous crises, when malpractice premiums experienced a sharp rise, insurance companies were quick to blame an explosion of litigation and skyrocketing jury verdicts. This time the argument is no different, but the statistics on both the extent of litigation and amounts of awards are conflicting and difficult to come by. Jury Verdict Research, a firm frequently cited by insurers, claims that the median jury award in medical malpractice cases rose from $500,000 in 1995 to $1,000,000 in the year 2000.6 These figures are vehemently criticized as misleading by consumer groups.7 The Consumer Federation of America, in a study of medical malpractice awards that includes all claims, even those with damage awards of zero, shows that the average payout for medical malpractice claims has risen only slightly over the past ten years, to an average of $42,607 in the year 2000.8 A U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of state courts cites a figure of $285,576 as the median award for 1996, about half the amount cited by Jury Verdict Research for that same year.9
[end of excerpt]
This is an interesting conversation. The way I read the question was that there was a market of 30,000,000 Americans without some sort of health insurance. * Was there a company capable of creating a product to satisfy this market? *
Sure there are mountains of reports on how difficult the health insurance industry is (litigation, high fees, poor management, etc, etc).
BUT a market size of 30,000,000 must surely be worth $BILLIONS$ to the person who can create the right product for this market.
So I will repeat Adam's question: "Is there a company with enough courage to come forward?"
Maybe you missed this part of the article:
"They could help fund health insurance for families who need it as part of their corporate giving. They could help their employees "adopt" other families."
Socialism.
Why is it up to businesses to provide health care? I know that once upon a time it gave employers a competitive edge when vying for the top candidates. But now it seems we should be less reliant on businesses and more reliant on other aggregators. A benefit of that would be that if you lost your job, you wouldn't also lose your health coverage.
People wouldn't feel they had to stick out a horrible job just for health care, and employers could focus their resources on business-related functions.
Also, one thing that's rarely mentioned in these debates is the notion that if people took care of themselves and stopped burdening the system with preventable conditions (obesity, lung cancer, heart disease, etc.), our premiums would decrease.
Post Your Own Comments