even if you dont agree with the idea, it seems like an exaggeration to say nothig ever trickles down. rich people and rich companies buy things and create jobs. and finding ways to save money for insurers will mean that premiums go down. sabanfan is talking about solutions. tort reform is a good place to start. more government is a bad place to start.
Maybe I don't know what trickle down means. If doctors can run their practices without paying 6 figure malpractice premiums, then they would naturally (it's called the free market, capitalism, competition, etc) lower their cost to provide care. As long as insurers are paying out 6 and 7 figures per year, per provider in claims and additionally 6 and 7 figures, per provider in defense costs, the premiums will remain high. No.
the crazy thing is that it is so simple. of course lesser expenses for insurers will result in them being able to offer cheaper premiums. nothing could be more obvious. i guess one of the top 5 rules of liberalism is that people need to be taught that corporations are out to get them and we need to be protected from them. of course the benefits of a more efficient system will trickle down. this is indisputable. we talked earlier about cutting expenses by using electronic recordkeeping. should we abandon that idea because the savings will never "trickle down"?
Did you read it? I read it very, very carefully before writing: I was also thinking about it when I wrote: In summary, all your article really claimed is that it was good for the health care industry. Sigh. There you go again. When a conservative's unsubstantiated argument is exposed as a likely red herring, he falls back on his old standby, calling the other person a "liberal". It's so very tiresome. TX was had, what, 14 years? Here's a free clue. Cost savings will never be passed down to the consumer absent real competition, widespread inability to pay, or regulation that forces it.
"Trickle-down" wasn't the right term, perhaps. Certainly corporate cost-cutting can reduce expenses which could result in reduced consumer costs. I see tort reform as simply cutting expenses, not as a government benefit to industry. Trickle-down theory is the policy of providing benefits to businesses and rich individuals in the belief that this will indirectly benefit the broad population. That's what has never worked as advertised. It's an old concept going back to "let them eat cake". John Kenneth Galbraith wrote, "Supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows."
Well, let me ask it in a non sarcastic tone. If you limit punitive damages, how do you stop companies from putting out bad products, like Ford did with the Pinto "Either way, a major scandal followed with the leaking to San Francisco magazine Mother Jones of the notorious "Ford Pinto Memo", an internal Ford cost-benefit analysis showing that the cost of implementing design changes to the subcompact's fuel system was greater than the economic cost of the burn injuries and deaths that could be prevented by doing so."
