Redstate

By blackhedd Posted in User Blogs — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Just when you thought it couldn't get any weirder, it does.

New Jersey enacted a law in 2004 providing for subsidy payments to physicians facing high malpractice insurance premiums. The first subsidies, up to $11,000 each, have just been paid out. Like a lot of places, New Jersey faced a shortage of providers in certain specialties under particular pressure from the plaintiff bar, as physicians chose to retire early or move to other states.

Now faced with a critical situation like this, wouldn't you suppose that the people of New Jersey would enact some intelligent restrictions on the behavior of predatory lawyers? Well, no. What they did instead was fund a program from fees on all doctors and most businesses in the state, that makes disbursements to doctors so they can buy malpractice insurance.

It's as if New Jersey's lawyers have found a way to keep their shark tank stocked with fresh, tasty morsels. Am I the only one here who thinks this is exactly the wrong way to address the problem? The doctors have no objection, since it's no skin off their nose if the citizens of the state are springing for the subsidies. The plaintiff bar is showing itself yet again for a no-value-added parasite. But how can we fix that, as long as state legistlatures are full of lawyers, and Democratic Party coffers are full of their campaign contributions?

And of course whenever this topic comes up here, someone always trots out the red-herring study showing that plaintiff-bar parasitism only increases the cost of health insurance by one or two percent. The real costs are indirect, as providers overprescribe diagnostics and procedures designed more to insulate themselves from malpractice awards than from improving outcomes for patients, and decline to provide certain services at all.