[davamanra]

I have lived in England for two years in my youth and both my parents are English by birth but naturalized US citizens. I have experienced socialized medicine first hand as have my parents. I don't pretend to know all the reasons why, but England's national health system works pretty well (except of course when it comes to dentistry!)

[Commodore]

lkm wrote:

I was merely trying to analyze the reasons for litigation, do you disagree with my reasoning?

No, though I would add that entire legal industries have built up around the idea that if something doesn't go as planned in a medical procedure, you are entitled to giant piles of cash, but only if the lawyer gets one too.

Make sure you give credit to the lawyers.

[lkm]

I was merely trying to analyze the reasons for litigation, do you disagree with my reasoning?

[Commodore]

The problem with socialized medicine is that it throws tax payer dollars at the expenses of a private built, maintained, staffed, and supplied health care infrastructure without addressing the expenses. So there's a thousand and one places where costs can inflate, and the only control the government has is to say, no, we are not going to pay for that. Or pass the cost along, so its your pay check that dies from a thousand cuts.

If your going to apply public funding to it, you have to go literally from the ground up, so there is no surprises. Build hospitals stronger to avoid high maintainance costs, design offices to be more efficient, make mass purchases of equipment so that economy of scale reduces the overall cost.

Unless of course your of the opinion that giving as much of your hard earned dollars as possible is patriotic and that the government can not only keep you alive, but make your life worth living as well.

[lkm]

I think in a system without effective welfare where any illness or accident could be ruinous litigation could be viewed as the only possibility for providing for the future for anyone with even the hint of a case, and as a result of that degree of litigation people who have a genuine greviance and more than anything just want a sincere and honest apology and an explanation of exactly what went wrong also are force to sue just to get those answers because doctors have been made so afraid of litigation that they cannot admit to any mistake, and as a result of that the ability of the proffession to collect and tackle bad practice and failure modes is potentially restricted thereby increasing the risk of error.