Jared Bernstein on Texas' Medical Tort Reform: The Old Bait and Switch

[flpoljunkie]

The Old Bait-and-Switch

Sep 04, 2011

My previous post argued that since they’re never going to be satisfied, you might as well not try to score political points by adopting business’s anti-regulatory agenda.

Here’s an interesting research report cited in this NYT piece showing how adapting another big, pro-business R idea—one some D’s have also been leaning towards of late—won’t help either.

Medical tort reform—limiting damages in medical malpractice cases—has consistently been touted by conservatives as the best way to reduce the increase in health care costs. It’s their surefire alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

That doesn’t mean the tort system is perfectly calibrated, but it’s another example of the dominant conservative bait-and-switch strategy: frame your reform as furthering an economic goal—jobs and incomes (supply-side tax cuts, close the EPA); slow the growth of health costs (tort reform)—when the real goal is providing a goodie to a constituent.

http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/the-old-bait-and-switch/

[Empowerer]

1. Tort reform is a Trojan Horse

It does nothing to reduce the costs of medical care, as advertised, but instead is designed to reduce costs for insurance companies who never have and never will pass on such reductions to physicians, patients or other consumers.