Wendy's Moves To Self Ordering System as Minimum Wages Rise

LetsGoBrandon · Jun 8, 2016

Absentglare said:
Again, tort reform does not address healthcare costs. You are misinformed if you think legal fees are the driving force behind cost increases.

Nobody is claiming that tort reform would address all healthcare costs. However it would certainly address a large chunk of the costs. Frivolous malpractice suits are a major cost factor. One example is the one of the left's favorite complaints....doctors ordering diagnostic tests up to the hilt. That's known in the medical field as "defensive medicine".

They are not, incremental income gains to powerful healthcare providers are the driving force behind cost increases. And they diverted a lot of their income to muddying the political waters so that laypeople will focus on non-solutions like tort reform.

Stay focused. We are talking about actual costs of providing healthcare directly. You can take the political nonsense elsewhere.

What do you think tort reform is ? It either reduces the ability of victims to bring cases to court or caps the damages that they might receive as a result.

Tort reform would go after the frivolous cases...not the legitimate cases. And since you mentioned caps.....hell yes there should be some limits to the amounts awarded in some cases.

Since people don't pay for doctors to **** up their healthcare, it's obviously not something that we directly pay for. You'd be fooling yourself if you thought medical tort reform would save us a meaningful amount of money. The saved money will show up as reduced medical malpractice insurance premiums for doctors, reflecting the reduced cost of litigation. Unless you expect doctors to happily accept a paycut, it is literally IMPOSSIBLE for this to factor into reduced costs from doctor visits.

Passing savings along would not mean a pay cut. You obviously have not run a business.

It doesn't only impact frivolous cases, it impacts all cases, by definition. Maybe you think it's a good thing for a grieving, single mother to have a significantly harder time bringing a medical malpractice suit to court where her husband died as a result, i don't.

Where pray tell are you coming up with that nonsense. Once again, tort reform is only intended to go after frivolous cases. It would not inhibit a young grieving single mother at all if she has a legitimate case.

Tell me, when the price of oil dropped, did the prices of all goods drop as a result of the reduced transportation costs ? No, they did not. It turns out that human nature is pretty straightforward, if you give someone a free lunch, they're likely to take it

.

Only liberals like yourself are that deeply cynical. The costs of most goods and services absolutely go down as most most in the retail business survive by competing with other businesses selling the same product. Supermarkets for instance would not survive if they did not make some effort to compete with Walmart and the variety of Dollar stores. When overhead costs less, they can drop the prices more. You have picked up the occasional sale paper when you go shopping, haven't you? And since you brought up oil, I am going to kindly assume that you have noticed the price of gasoline at the pumps going up or down based on the price of a barrel of oil and seasonal demand.

Hospitals don't compete. That is one of the biggest problems.

They would if they were not so over-regulated.

Tort reform doesn't address that in any way.

Tort reform does address one of the major cost. Unless you think Hosptials and doctors just laugh off those costs.

"According to Bloomberg Businessweek, "Study after study shows that costs associated with malpractice lawsuits make up 1% to 2% of the nation's $2.5 trillion annual health-care bill and that tort reform would barely make a dent in the total."[15]"

I don't put much worth into studies that start out with pre-intended results. I certainly do not take Bloomberg seriously.

So how much of that 1-2% do you think are truly "frivolous" ?

First, I do not buy the 1 to 2% claim. And even if I did, that 1-2% claim does not cover all the costs rated to frivolous lawsuits.

195,000 Americans die every year due to medical negligence. The reason lawsuits are expensive is because doctors screw up all the time. The reason we want tort reform is to resolve the conflict of interest where doctors are incentivized to mislead their patients so that they can reduce the risk of a lawsuit.

I have never faced any of the screw ups you claim are common place, nor has any other member of my family or circle of friends. Negligence exists, however it's not as common as you make out.

Absentglare · Jun 8, 2016

Moderate Right said:
But you are assuming that everyone is an asshole.

No, i'm not, i'm arguing that people are consistently capable of excusing their own personal, incremental gains.

Further, i'm not arguing that they are all greedy. Many are simply accepting the salaries they are offered. Others are making much less than their peers. What i'm saying is that many of them are generally greedy, enough that it considerably impacts overall costs. No such thing as a free lunch and all that.

Absentglare · Jun 8, 2016

ObamacareFail said:
Nobody is claiming that tort reform would address all healthcare costs. However it would certainly address a large chunk of the costs. Frivolous malpractice suits are a major cost factor. One example is the one of the left's favorite complaints....doctors ordering diagnostic tests up to the hilt. That's known in the medical field as "defensive medicine".

Stay focused. We are talking about actual costs of providing healthcare directly. You can take the political nonsense elsewhere.

Tort reform would go after the frivolous cases...not the legitimate cases. And since you mentioned caps.....hell yes there should be some limits to the amounts awarded in some cases.

Passing savings along would not mean a pay cut. You obviously have not run a business.

Where pray tell are you coming up with that nonsense. Once again, tort reform is only intended to go after frivolous cases. It would not inhibit a young grieving single mother at all if she has a legitimate case.

.

Only liberals like yourself are that deeply cynical. The costs of most goods and services absolutely go down as most most in the retail business survive by competing with other businesses selling the same product. Supermarkets for instance would not survive if they did not make some effort to compete with Walmart and the variety of Dollar stores. When overhead costs less, they can drop the prices more. You have picked up the occasional sale paper when you go shopping, haven't you? And since you brought up oil, I am going to kindly assume that you have noticed the price of gasoline at the pumps going up or down based on the price of a barrel of oil and seasonal demand.

They would if they were not so over-regulated.

Tort reform does address one of the major cost. Unless you think Hosptials and doctors just laugh off those costs.

I don't put much worth into studies that start out with pre-intended results. I certainly do not take Bloomberg seriously.

First, I do not buy the 1 to 2% claim. And even if I did, that 1-2% claim does not cover all the costs rated to frivolous lawsuits.

I have never faced any of the screw ups you claim are common place, nor has any other member of my family or circle of friends. Negligence exists, however it's not as common as you make out.

Tort reform addresses almost none of the costs. I provided facts to back that up. Why don't you bring some of your own ?

I don't agree with caps, i think judges should have freedom in judgements. I'm willing to accept them for the sake of addressing the conflict of interest.

I didn't say that passing savings along would not mean a pay cut. Listen to me very carefully. Let's say a doctor makes $100/yr and pays $10/yr in malpractice insurance. His take-home is $90/yr. He charges his customers based on his salary of $100/yr. Now, we pass tort reform, and his malpractice insurance costs go down. Now he spends $5/yr in malpractice insurance. His take-home is now $95/yr. His patients costs are unchanged because they are still charged based off of $100/yr.

All other things held constant, the doctor would pocket the gain. The doctor would need to take a paycut down to $95/yr so his take-home would be $90/yr and that's the only way it that the reduced malpractice insurance costs would find their way to the consumers.

"It would not inhibit a young grieving single mother at all if she has a legitimate case."

This is false. You cannot pass tort reform without inhibiting the ability to bring cases to court or cap settlements that result. Either the single mother gets less potential money or has a harder time taking the case to court. One of the two. That's what tort reform is, by definition.

If competition were keeping prices in tune with costs, we would NOT be having this discussion.

This source claims 2-3% accounting for defensive medicine.

"As for "frivolous lawsuits," defined as cases that should never have been brought at all, they're a lot rarer than most tort reform advocates admit. Studies have documented that the vast majority of them don't yield a payment to the plaintiff. The converse is a bigger problem -- genuinely injured patients who can't get redress because the courthouse doors have been shut to them. The victims there are often lower-income or unemployed patients.

The quintessential tort reform law is California's MICRA, to the state's shame. The Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act capped noneconomic and nonmedical damages in malpractice to $250,000 in 1975. Inflation has eroded that sum to the equivalent today of about $57,000 in 1975 dollars."

New study shows that the savings from 'tort reform' are mythical - LA Times

Wendy's Moves To Self Ordering System as Minimum Wages Rise

LetsGoBrandon

Absentglare

Absentglare