According to Paul Ryan (R), representative of Wisconsin’s 1st district, Republicans in congress do in fact have a slew of vibrant solutions to help fix our country’s broken health care system! I know, I know – you are probably asking yourself why Ryan and his colleagues did not mend this defunct system when they controlled both the Presidency and the House of Representatives from 2000-2006? I can’t say that I know the answer, but I would assume that if you actually asked Paul Ryan you would probably hear some slick and mindless spiel about taxes and competition. At any rate, Ryan highlights the much-publicized Republican fix-all for health care reform: Tort reform!
Don’t get me wrong, I think that tort reform can offer something valuable to our society and that it is probably needed to some degree. Doctors should not practice so-called “defensive medicine” and doing so likely wracks up medical costs. It is also worth pointing out that one of the main reasons that Democrats try to ignore this issue is because they get big bucks from trial lawyers. However, to think that tort reform will magically improve the vast majority of our country’s health care system is completely disingenuous. Maybe the Republicans don’t say this explicitly, but it is always the first thing mentioned when they are asked if they have a reasonable plan to improve health care. Thus, they are either acknowledging that they bring only trivial ideas to the table, or they are suggesting that tort reform is in fact something they perceive as a major component of health care reform.
This angers me for two reasons. One, tort reform is unlikely to have as large of an impact as Republicans desire. Studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine have shown that frivolous lawsuits make up only a small portion of medical malpractice lawsuits and are usually thrown out of court. The bulk of lawsuits come from doctors making mistakes on patients, which are legitimate claims. Also worth mentioning is that states that have actually enacted strict tort reform have not seen substantial decreases in their medical costs. The state of Texas has seen some of the most staunch tort reform in the country, yet still has some of the highest health care costs. Two, the idea of tort reform does not philosophically make sense with the Republican message of less government intervention. The Republicans holler about wanting the government to stay out of our lives, and yet here they are trying to get the government to regulate the courts and the legal system.
With all the conservative pontificators and academics that have reigned over the past decades, it is utterly shocking that the Republicans in Congress cannot come up with more varied and, well, effective proposals that address health care. But then again, I’m not too surprised, since the Republicans actually nominated this lady to be our country’s second-in-command.
