HEALTH CARE: Start with tort reform

Like most Americans, I know that the health care industry needs to be reformed. For starters, any reform without tort reform is a waste of effort. Lawyers’ ability to sue without restriction causes people to run for the cover of insurance companies.

PETE DAVIS; Tacoma

Published: 03/08/10 12:05 am

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Like most Americans, I know that the health care industry needs to be reformed. For starters, any reform without tort reform is a waste of effort. Lawyers’ ability to sue without restriction causes people to run for the cover of insurance companies.

Then to limit possible gouging by insurance companies, the government needs to drop some, not all, of its burdensome restrictions and make it easier for companies to enter the insurance markets. Then the free market could start to work, and consumers would have choices. We might even get policies written in plain English, and not by lawyers trying to respond to laws written by other lawyers.

If the government is going to restrict anything, let’s start with those who are guilty of fraud. Gross incidents of fraud should be dealt with quickly and severely.

Finally, Americans are some of the most overweight people on the planet, and if we don’t think that negatively impacts our health care system we are fooling ourselves. Maybe we are, because we believe that a group of lawyers in Washington could actually simplify any process by adding another 2,400-plus pages of new regulations.

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