"Dave Mundt" wrote in message
...

Alas, it is a complicated problem. One factor is that
health care became a profit center some years ago...and in ANY
business, when that happens, the focus shifts from providing
the service or goods to minimizing costs and maximizing the
amount of money pumped to the investors.

Health care - no matter what form it took, has always been a "profit
center". Even the family doctor of old who holds such an emotional place in
our imaginations, was in it for the profit. Profit all by iteslf is not
contrary to good health care.

One factor is the legal system. While I am not entirely sure
that malpractice awards ARE the huge burden that some would have us
believe, there are those costs.

I would be inclined to agree that malpractice is not the problem the health
care industry would have us believe. Certainly, there is some problem
within that industry which the industry should be held accountable to and
for which significant awards have been made, but like you, I question what
percentage of the take this really represents.

Another factor is the fact that the average American seems to
believe that (a) All medical procedures have to return them to
perfection and (b) it's someone else's fault. This creates the
demands for lawyers and the suits filed in the courts.

Not so sure I agree with this point at all.

This leads to the huge costs of malpractice insurance
for the medical profession. WHen the insurance companies became
"for profit" organizations, they, too, ceased to perform their
true function - of spreading the risk around through a huge
population, thereby ensuring that no one would be wiped
out by a catastrophic illness or accident - and became
money pumps for investors.

Insurance companies have *always* been a for profit venture. They did this
by spreading risk, but it has always been for the purpose of profit and not
for any other reason.

So...they crank up the costs of
insurance to the point that they can be assured that they not
only do not suffer any pains on the rare times that they
end up having to pay something out, but, they actively work
to avoid paying out claims by finding ways to void that coverage
or to minimize the amount they DO have to pay out. Look at the
profit figures published by the companies. "Profit" for an insurance
company means cash that they have NOT paid out to help folks get
over accidents, get medicines, etc, but, HAVE paid to investors,
whose only problem is that they are only making $0.10/share, instead
of $0.50/share.

Alas - the fundamental principle of profit. Not so different from what
everyone with a 401K expects from the companies that their money is invested
in.

--

-Mike-