Senator Harry Reid supports public option
In today’s Las Vegas Sun, Lisa Mascaro reported that Senator Harry Reid held a private meeting of health care providers in Las Vegas last Tuesday. Reid is quoted as saying:
“We have a problem in America and it’s called the private insurance industry.”
Reid also spoke about the antitrust exemptions health insurance companies have enjoyed for decades as part of the problem with the industry.
Having been blogging about the private health insurance industry for weeks now I thought “La de da—no fooling.”
I’ve been blogging incessantly about the revelations of Wendell Potter, former executive of CIGNA, (See CIGNA’s website) in his interviews with Bill Moyers and Amy Goodman.
Anyone reading the interviews of Mr. Potter can plainly see how the for-profit insurance industry companies have been ripping off the American public in order to appease the demands of Wall Street investors. The role of money, power and political influence have so corrupted the industry, at the expense of ordinary Americans, that working Americans have been left hanging naked in the health care wilderness.
The health care industry has become merged into three or four huge companies and scores of subsidiaries so that health care services are virtually controlled by that small group, and are driven by corporate profit rather than service to human beings. It is almost criminal in its affect.
Yet, judging from the anger of those opposed to health care reform, the very people being victimized by the private insurance industry, leaves one to wonder where their common sense lies. They seem so caught up with waving the flag, shouting socialism, government-run, one marvels at their willful blindness in recognizing how willingly duped they are.
Tort reform came up. Insurance companies and, apparently most in the medical business want medical malpractice reform.
Some health professionals argue that medical costs are driven up by those who practice so-called “defensive medicine” — that is, doctors ordering unnecessary tests on patients to cover themselves in the event of lawsuits. Republicans have seized on this issue, arguing it’s time to change malpractice law and rein in trial lawyers.
At the Tuesday meeting, Reid told health care providers the story about a surgery he needed some years ago on his left foot. As he was in the hospital preparing for the operation, he asked what the markings on his right foot signified.
He was told they marked the foot to be operated on.
Reid told the staff they had marked the wrong foot.
[Michael] Ginsburg [a community organizer at the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada] took this to mean Reid had no tolerance for the kinds of tort reform being suggested by some of the doctors in the room as a way to rein in medical costs.
However, Dr. Ronald Kline, president-elect of the Nevada State Medical Association, was struck by Reid’s interest in medical review panels that once functioned in Nevada — panels that would review lawsuits and render nonbinding decisions about the merits of a case that supporters say can reduce the number of lawsuits going forward. The panels were disbanded a few years ago in Nevada.
“It was like an evolution of his thought,” Kline said.
What if the wrong foot of Reid had been operated on, or even amputated? Should the erring surgeon only be required to say , “Gee, sorry about that Harry.” Then suggests, “We’ll go back and do it again—only this time remove the offending foot.”
Reformation of the American tort system has serious consequences to those folks who lose their limbs due to medical errors. What are your feet worth to you?
The subtitle of the Sun’s article read:
He supports public option to provide competition, and hints he’s against conservatives’ tort reforms
That is encouraging. The question I have is what kind of public option?
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2 comments
A woman had an infected leg, so bad they had to amputate. Late in the surgery the surgeon realized he took off the wrong leg. He also know the remaining, bad leg would kill the woman so he had no choice but to remove that one as well.
Later the woman was in recovery and was told of the mistake. She called her lawyer who came by. She told him the problem and said “I’m going to sue that bastard surgeon for all he’s worth”. The lawyer replied “You don’t have a leg to stand on.”.
You just provided one example of why the tort system of the United States, evolved over hundreds of years, should be left intact.
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