I'd fell a whole lot better about the 'Cash for Clunkers' program if we hadn't already dished billions of dollars into the union, I mean, auto bailout programs. This is just another example of the government spending billions of dollars before they can get it right.
As for health care, I'll believe that the President is serious about reforming health care if he shows the willingness to tackle the following issues, which until now, he has not:
- control the costs of malpractice and fraudulent lawsuits. For someone who loves control as much as this President has shown he does, controlling the amount of payouts in lawsuits should be a no-brainer.
First- keep the fraudulent lawsuits to a minimum by levying a hefty fine on those that are found to have no basis for a lawsuit. It's too easy to sue in America and there needs to be a program in effect to keep the fraudulent cases from seeing the light of day.
Next, limit the amount of money that can be paid in malpractice suits. If the President keeps referencing the European style of health care, he should also mention that they don't allow massive payouts in lawsuits over there. We're talking thousands of dollars for the victims, not the millions you see in America. Controlling the payouts would lower the cost of Doctors' insurance, a huge, huge burden on the health care system.
At the same time, there needs to be monetary limits on how much the lawyers are entitled to. The lawyers will go as high as they can go in a suit to line their own pockets, that's a given; put limits on them and the payout in lawsuits will drop.
It's not likely that we'll see the President take any of these measures because he's a Harvard lawyer, isn't he? He already showed he would do anything to protect the unions, so how could we expect that he would challenge his lawyer buddies?
No one should take this health care plan seriously because it's obvious that this Administration is either not willing or does not have the cajones to confront the real issues that are burdening the system.
