Fred: A Call for Proactive Proposals

Hello again, all.
In response to Bruce's comments, it seems we might ask him to clarify just how a new system might work. Can he make some positive, specific proposals for change that would, in his view, help the situation? "Lowering taxes" and "Reducing government regulation" sound great in principle, but the first will make our health care cost crisis much worse (how would we pay for Medicare?), and the latter would enable more corporations to do what the bankers did as a result of the banking deregulation of the 1990s--run off with a lot of our money. The main lesson of the current financial crisis, it seems to me, is that we need more regulation, at least in some arenas.

A lot of people who oppose changes currently being proposed are afraid they'll LOSE their Medicare coverage (although the proposals won't do that), but lowering taxes would make Medicare go belly up that much faster. Do we want to "starve the beast" and let Medicare be the first casualty? Who, then, would pay the medical costs of our elderly? Do we just want to let them bankrupt themselves (and/or their children) and then be out on the streets, ill? This sounds as bad as Cal's original nightmare of "Solyent Red".

Can we find a way to keep plaintiff attorneys from running up such huge legal bills that tax the system? Maybe, but it would mean more government regulations--laws to cap damages, for example. If the cap is too high, it won't help reduce costs; if it's too low, some health care providers will take shortcuts with our health care, knowing that if they got sued they wouldn't have to pay that much. It's a bit ironic that conservatives who always argue that market forces are the most efficient solution to everything don't want market regulation of torts--i.e., the free exercise of lawsuits by the aggrieved--presumably, because in that case the lawsuits cost the big corporations lots of money. But such lawsuits act as an effective check on corporate (and individual) misbehavior, through a market-like system. The damages awarded are sometimes huge because the corporations that are the defendants are hugely rich, so (a) they can afford to pay, and (b) they need to be penalized sufficiently that they will notice it; a piddling judgment against them won't deter them from misbehaving in the same way again. This, it seems to me, is the market at work. I'm surprised that anyone who claims to be a conservative/free marketeer would be in favor of limiting lawsuit damages. (And, by the way, I'm NOT an attorney!)

Best, -Fred