"thunder" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 07:09:46 +0000, Calif Bill wrote:


Look at Kerry's running mate as one of the reasons for soaring medical
costs. Someone has to pay the multi-million dollar costs of litigation.

Lawyers make easy targets, but they are a very small part of medical
costs. The Congressional Budget Office states that malpractice costs
account for less than 2% of health care spending.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/200...3/prsa0223.htm

$24 billion is a lot of cash the insurance companies have to pay out. And
is probably only a mid percentage of the actual costs. The threat of suits
cost money also. The $24 billion also has a time value cost as well as the
direct cost. How many extra tests are required to cover the medical fields
butts in case of suit. Those tests are run every time. As my friends aunt,
used to like to ride in the ambulance, every time she had a pain, she had
the rest home send her to the hospital. The emergency room always did a
full array of tests, no matter that her complaint was a sore arm. These
also add to the $24 Billion. Big time addition. Most doctors are not
getting filthy rich like Union bosses (gratuitous dig), but are upper middle
class money. But after 10 years of school and residency, they should be
well paid. All this adds to the cost of medical care. Yes, drugs should
not cost anywhere as much as they do here. The drug companies can make a
profit in Canada and Mexico and Europe, just not the amount of margin made
in the USA. And the fact that most of the research was paid for by the US
taxpayer through university funding and the drug companies just take the
research the last few feet, should warrant lower prices to the US over other
countries. We should be able to recoup some of our research costs.