Edwards' numbers on insurance and health care costs

[phantom power]

Last night, Edwards quoted some numbers to the effect that insurance accounts for 0.5% (half of a percent) of the cost of health care.

That seemed like quite a small percentage to me. Does anybody out there understand how he arrived at that number?

[MsUnderstood]

1. I'd have to hear the debate again

But wasn't he quoting the fact that the lawsuits Bush and Cheney are trying to rid this country of are .5% of the lawsuits in this country?

[Robert Oak]

2. think he was talking about liability for medical professionals

tort reform operates under the guise that civil lawsuits raise
Doctor's liability insurance...which would then be passed
onto the patients as additional costs

think he was saying that liability insurance and lawsuits only
are that percentage, which I can believe...

IMHO, we need some Doctors, etc. to tell us about health care costs
and some references...right now I don't know jack except I don't
have any insurance.

[EmperorHasNoClothes]

3. I believe he said

That if */Cheney's proposal for reducing malpractice suits were enacted, it would reduce health care costs by 0.5%. Seems like a pretty reasonable estimate.

[gbwarming]

4. Malpractice payouts ARE a small percentage of all healthcare costs

Pubs hapr on this because it sounds good but while there are a FEW well publicized cases of large dollar injury and punative awards (often reduced by judges or on appeal after they make the headlines), they make a tiny percentage of costs. Did cheney use a single number last night on this subject? I don't think so.


http://www.centerjd.org/air/pr/AIRhealthcosts.pdf

Think Malpractice is Driving Up Health Care Costs? Think Again.
Medical malpractice payouts are less than one percent of total U.S. health care costs.
All “losses” (verdicts, settlements, legal fees, etc.) have stayed under 1% percent for the last 18 years.
Medical malpractice premiums are less than one percent of total U.S. health care costs.

In 2002, payouts were less
than one percent (0.38%)


Dropping for nearly two decades, malpractice premiums have stayed below 1% of health care costs.
In 2002, premiums were less
than one percent (0.58%)

--------------
Dick Cheney wants you to read this article on factcheck.org
http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=133

Two Congressional agencies dispute findings that caps on damage awards produce big savings in medical costs.




EDIT: Here's what John Edwards said:
++++++++++++++++
IFILL: Senator Edwards, new question to you, same topic. Do you feel personally attacked when Vice President Cheney talks about liability reform and tort reform and the president talks about having a trial lawyer on the ticket?

EDWARDS: Am I personally attacked?

I think the truth is that what they're doing is talking about an issue that really doesn't have a great deal to do with what's happening with medical policy in this country, which I think is a very serious issue.

And I would be the first to say that what the vice president described a few minutes ago, problems with malpractice premiums, that's true, it's real. It's very real. What doctors talk about is very serious.

And they're getting squeezed from both sides. I mean, because, they have trouble getting reimbursed, first of all, for the care that they provide, you know, from the government or from health-care companies. And, on the flip side, their malpractice costs are going up.

That's very real, which is why we have proposed a plan to keep cases out of the system that don't belong there.

But it's very important to put this in context. Because, in context, everything they're proposing, according to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, amounts to about half of 1 percent of health-care costs in this country -- half of 1 percent.

We have double-digit inflation in health care costs. We've seen the largest rise in medical costs in the last four years in the country's history: $3,500 nationally. And nobody who's watching this debate needs me to explain this to them. They know it.

Medicare premiums are up 17 percent on their watch. Again, largest increase in Medicare premiums in the history of Medicare.

We think we have a plan to keep cases that don't belong in the system out, but we also do what they haven't done.

Five million Americans have lost their health care coverage. Medical costs are skyrocketing. We have a serious health care plan to bring down costs for everybody, to cover millions more Americans and to actually stand up to drug companies and insurance companies which this administration has been unwilling to do.

IFILL: Mr. Vice President?

CHENEY: Gwen, we think lawsuit abuse is a serious problem in this country. We think we badly need tort reform.

I was in Minnesota the other day, where I visited an aircraft manufacturing plant. It's a great success story. This is a company that started 20 years ago with nothing. Today they're the second- leading producer of piston-driven aircraft in the country.

He told me that if it weren't for the increased cost of his liability insurance, in this case product liability, he could hire 200 more people in his factory. We've built into the system enormous costs as a result of our practice with respect to litigation. We have to find ways to get a handle on it.
(more http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_np=0&u_pg=1673&u_sid=1222660 )

[papau]

5. Very true - when I was setting the price the increase in cost was nil!

:-)

Indeed any actuary who has worked in health insurance would know this.