Here is a link to the place in the bill that restricts torte reform:

 Big Government » Blog Archive » Pelosi Health Care Bill Blows a Kiss to Trial Lawyers

I always wonder if health insurance had never been conceptualized maybe we would be better off.  Then we just deal with our doctors and they with us.  There is no or very little direct payment for the participant to the doctor so who cares how much it costs, and then the costs go up.  The amount of people whose pay checks have to be paid to run insurance and healthcare make the costs go up.  I don’t want anyone to lose jobs, but when you think about what really drives the costs it is overwhelming.  They get yearly raises and my policy gets raised.

The new bill does not in any way shape of form deal with torte reform.  California has limited medical malpractice torte reform which has made some changes, but it could go farther.  Unfortunately, the new form of the bill, not only has no torte reform, if your state does have torte reform it will not be able to receive incentives payments unless they reject medical malpractice reform..  They have just turned it over to the lawyers. 

Rita you make a lot of sweeping judgements about people who disagree with Obamacare.  Insurance lobbyists pushed for years for their companies to separate from being involved with doctors and run their businesses like corporations, it wasn’t just righties, since many of those corps are run by lefties.  The argument was that they it would be more efficient and CEO’s could save the taxpayer money.  Well it didn’t happen, it only raised costs.  Then they got special Anti-trust standing so they could get bigger and bigger and no one could challenge them, another wrong decision by government.  Wrong decisions because congress is too involved with special interests.  Government is not the organization to run anything.

Nothing will change until it is totally illegal to take any money for anything from special interests and lobbyists. 

Sherrie

Great points, but I think that right now more than anything, people want jobs.  We get our self-respect and self-worth from our ability to work and how and what we do.  The government and congress has benefited greatly from how well Americans work.  Americans love to work and do it well.  If the environment is there for business to grow and create more jobs, then people will get employed, most of them would get insurance.  The government’s only "true" or not borrowed, revenues come from people who have jobs and therefore pay taxes.  

During the Clinton years I was always fascinated by how many jobs were created during that time, because he never said much in any interviews about it.  I always wondered what steps they took to do it.  I knew some because I was a small business and had many of my deductions cut therefore had higher taxes.  But that wasn’t all it was - then I heard him speak about it after he was out of office.  At first they raised taxes on small business, he didn’t raise them much on his rich friends, but he did on us. (Just so you know, I liked Clinton and voted for him).  Anyway then they gradually lowered or reversed those taxes.  But, then he said something to the effect of - "there is not much a president can do about job creation except foster a healthy environment for it."  Well that is not happening today.  Why didn’t they focus on jobs and saving more jobs?  If they had done that and had some wins and started the healthcare debate next year when he was more experienced at his job, the environment would have been more conducive to it.   

Cokie Roberts was on Sunday Morning a couple of weeks ago and said that not 40% of the GDP is government jobs - federal, state and local.  That means the rest of the population pays taxes to sustain that.  Once they cannot borrow anymore, it will be unsustainable - impossible to maintain.  Since the economic meltdown government has grown - where is that money coming from if there is less employment therefore less tax revenues?   

Beth

My sister in law is a nurse and tells me all the time about how crazy the regulations have gotten just to help a patient get well.  There are so many restrictions and regulations since it is government money, that some of her patients are getting worse because they don’t meet certain criteria.  They have to petition medicaid constantly and the bureaucracy moves slowly. 

Bonnie

If there is anything left to leave my children - they will have to pay for our debt now with it.   

Belinda

There is a program for those too poor to afford medical care - it is called Medicaid.  I was on it as a child so I am very familiar with it.  My mother was on welfare for a few years after my father left since she could not support 8 children.  So I have experienced extreme poverty and the unfortunate medicaid system.  Hard to find a doctor, but had plenty of lousy dentists. 

It is people who work and own a home and make too much money to qualify for medicaid, yet cannot afford insurance, that are the ones in trouble.  Statistically, those are the ones that are falling through the cracks.  My sister-in-law is a dialysis nurse and all of her patients are on medicaid.  No insurance company will take them so they are on the government program, as they should be.  The trouble is, and she is an avid Obama supporter, but is totally against the Healthcare Bill, because the govt imposes charted medical standards that are unrealistic and limiting.  She knows when her patients needs more care or a procedure so they won’t get sicker, but because of the limits of the regulation, she can’t do it.  For instance, there are certain blood markers that have to be monitored for levels of different chemicals - let’s just say - salt and potassium when doing dialysis, if they don’t follow levels in the guideline set out by medicaid regulation you are not allowed to do procedures to benefit the patient.  The patient gets sicker and sicker when it could have been prevented - until they get sick enough to do the procedure.  She says it ends up costing lots more money than it would if they could do the procedure in the first place.  The long hand of government inefficiency deciding patient care does not work.  If I am in the same circumstances, I do not want that to happen to me, would you?  I don’t think so, but that is what it has gotten to, and that is what many are afraid of and why they oppose 1900 pages of ifs, ands, buts and maybes in the bill.  We will have to pay more, there is not doubt about it.  The CBO has now billed it at 1.5 trillion.  What a crock. 

Obama didn’t write this bill, the dems in congress did - that was where he lost control of the argument.   

I have been self-employed for 25 years.  Not always full time, but was never shy about checking on what can be deducted.  My tax man sends me updates and I email him and check the govt sites to see what is new or what they have taken away.  The medical deductions can get complicated sometimes because I use alternative medicine.  We have our accounts set up so that  our health insurance is deducted.  We design and build so I can deduct many great publications that we use to help them with ideas.  Car deductions get complicated because I work at home but no longer deduct my home office because when they gave us the chance to opt out of it, I did.  

I am pretty up on payroll and work comp.  Since our work is considered fine artisan there are many odd things we have to use in the creative process - one of our clients like their cabinets lined with velvet - hence trips to fabric stores.  Just have to be able to prove what you use as materials.

If you donate anything to a thrift store (Good Will etc) make sure you photograph it for your files.  The IRS sometimes asks you to prove with photos.  I will donate old stock, and we have things in the shop that we cycle out after a couple years of no use - like hardware.

Yes I know about he coffee filters and a lot more, and we take everything the law allows us.  The hard part is the paper.  There are so many receipts and bills of lading I feel like I am buried in paper most of the time.  THere is a "keeper of the keys" and there are paper keepers.  Sometimes the paper feels like an avalanche.