COMMENT: You have discussed the growing threat of antibiotic resistance several times.  Sadly, I must confess, I am, in part, responsible for this trend.

I am a practicing physician. Last year, I had a lawsuit filed against me for NOT prescribing antibiotics. Since then, I prescribe antibiotics more frequently than ever.  My punishment, for attempting to be a good steward of antibiotic use, has been devastating.

I see the massive increase in costs of healthcare, as well as our nation’s over-regulation and bloated catalog of laws, as (directly and indirectly) caused by excessive litigation.  (In medicine, we sometimes refer to  malpractice suits “the hillbilly lottery,” because of the near randomness of any tort action to actual poor practice.)

In Niall Ferguson’s book, The Great Degeneration, he identifies rampant litigation and the explosion in lawsuits as one of the critical causes of the coming collapse of our society.
Do your data confirm this?   (Mine do.)

Thanks

Anonymous

REPLY: This is part of my argument that lawyers should not dominate politics. In the first Congress, there were 91 members in total of which 34 were lawyers or about 37%. In the 112^th Congress (2011–2012) with 539 total members, there were 208 career politicians and 200 lawyers accounting for about 75% who have NEVER been on our side of the fence. In the current Congress, 160 of the House of Representatives’ 435 seats and 53 of the Senate’s 100 which is almost 40% are lawyers which is up slight from the 112th Congress.

There is ABSOLUTELY zero hope of getting real healthcare reform for the driving cost is lawyers suing doctors. As long as bureaucrats and lawyers control Congress, we are screwed. Then there are hospitals that are engaging in outright fraud. Ask to see an itemized bill and you will typically see $30 for an aspirin. Now the latest scam is to cover you only within a network. That means if you were on vacation in the States someplace and needed medical attention, guess what – some companies refuse to pay anything!

Obamacare has been a windfall profit binge for hospitals and insurance companies at the expense of the people. One personal friend signed up for Obamacare and when she went to the doctor she was treated like scum saying you have one of those “charity” insurances yet she paid $300+ per month.

The largest increase in cost for Obamacare among the 37 states was in Oklahoma, where the benchmark plan’s premium rose by an average of 36%. Other states with premium increases of more than 25% were Alaska, Montana and New Mexico. This is becoming totally insane. On average, medical insurance under Obamacare rose nationally 7.5% in a year. Yet Democrats cheer it and MSNBC demonizes anyone who dares to criticize the plan.

This excessive rise in healthcare costs has been supported by lawyers and hospitals – not private doctors who are being driven into groups to survive herded like cattle by lawyers. Looking at healthcare costs as a percent of total GDP, this single industry has grown in cost far out of proportion to everything else but education. What do the two have in common? Both are subsidized so they have no natural check and balance.

Guess what? We reach 51.6 years on this cycle in 2017. The entire system starts to collapse. Once upon a time you had a personal physician.

Now you have government and lawyers milking that relationship sucking every penny they can out of it until you have no viable livelihood left for taxes and healthcare take more than 75% of the middle class income and the solution is to raise taxes on the rich of course. Only when people cannot afford to pay these outrageous healthcare costs that rise even in deflation, will the cost of healthcare collapse and come down crashing like any market.

Obamacare seeking to at first criminally prosecute anyone who did not have health insurance illustrated how nuts things have become. The Republicans at least forced the Democrats to remove that one replacing it with a fine. Can you image being thrown into a prison cell with a child molester for not being able to pay for health insurance? Had the Democrats been completely with no opposition, you would spend time in prison today if you get sick and could not afford to pay health insurance. And these people are on our side?