[lotsofpulp]

> It is an important distinction. For example, about 33% of healthcare dollars go to paying “claims proceesing” people at your insurance company and your doctors office to haggle with each other and produce duplicate paperwork.

This is not true, but there is a big non patient healthcare services culprit in US healthcare costs, and that is legal liability. In the US, every entity in the healthcare chain is doing so much extra to prevent themselves from being liable, and charging extra in case they are found liable, that it inflates all costs dramatically.

Without tort reform, I doubt we see much improvement.

[throwaway173738]

Tort reform is a red herring here in that most insurance companies do things that they deserve to be sued over as a matter of routine, and they like to talk about ways to statutorily limit your right to sue them like having a system of complaints with a commissioner who has no time to process complaints. I think healthcare costs are a result of lots of different insane things that snowball rather than something simple like too many lawsuits.

[moneywoes]

What’s the easiest, ocams razor solution here? Tort sounds easy

[TexanFeller]

Here in TX they put caps on awards for medical malpractice. As far as I can tell it hasn't helped costs all that much. Also if my Dr. leaves me paralyzed I can only get 500k damages. Malpractice law is a problem, but I don't think it's the one to focus on.

[lotsofpulp]

Good point to be able to compare different states.