There are many problems facing this country right now. Here are my top 3 on the hit list for President Obama:
1. Health Care reform. My husband and I are self-employed, and our monthly health insurance bill is staggering. It went up 20% from last year, and it’s a crappy policy. We have a small child so health insurance isn’t optional for us.
I’m no lawyer, but from what I’ve heard, one huge expense in health care is malpractice insurance. Doctors might get sued for $4,000,000,000 for a mistake or accident, so they shell out enormous quantities of cash for malpractice insurance.
Ok, so now it’s time for what lawyer friends tell me is tort reform. Meaning, we have to place a value on human life and limb. So, if you go in to have an appendix removed and the surgeon removes your left leg instead, he only pays $5 million. Or if you’re having a baby and the obstetrician drops the newborn and its head smashes open and it dies, she can only be sued for $10 million. Let’s place those limits so we can bring down the cost of malpractice insurance so that EVERYONE CAN AFFORD DECENT HEALTH INSURANCE… without having to sell a kidney!
To implement this, we will also need better oversight of doctors. They make mistakes; they’re human. I propose oversight composed of both medical doctors and laymen.
2. Education. “No child left behind” sounds good in theory, but in practice what it has done is forced frantic teachers to teach for tests. They used to teach a curriculum. Now they teach the kids how to answer specific questions. This is not helping our children learn, or learn how to learn.
I propose that every district have an oversight panel, and every school have a committee of kids who give reports on the teachers. Here’s the thing: the kids always know which teachers are good and which aren’t. And the teachers always know which kids are decent and honorable, and which aren’t.
For instance, in my daughters’ school, there is a terrible science teacher. He doesn’t prepare the kids for college science–the kids who’ve graduated all agree on that. But he’s head of the science department, so he’s always going to be there, failing to teach adequately.
For which reason, let one of the committees, either the kid’s committee or the oversight panel, reach out to college students to ask them: Who prepared you for college, and who didn’t?
3. Sharp limits on salaries and bonuses of executives in industries which receive bailout money. Dear President Obama: you are using my tax money to rescue avaricious business people who refused to consider the long-term effects of their actions. Please don’t reward them for their greed and lust for immediate gratification. No executive, from mid-level management up, in one of those rescued industries, should earn more than $100,000 in all wages and compensation for five years. Let them sell some of their assets. They should pay, too, just as we ordinary citizens are paying for their selfishness.
There are at least ten other vitally important areas to be addressed. These are one woman’s top three.
In regards to your comment about tort reform, I would encourage you to do your own research. In reality, it’s not the malpractice suits that are driving up the cost of insurance but rather the greed of the insurance industries. Take a look at what their profits are year and year and tell me if you think that they are struggling. Take a look at the CEO salaries and let me know if you feel that paying them millions a year is justified as you struggle to find a way to pay for it all.
Additionally, many states have enacted medical malpractice screening panels which are meant to reduce the number of “frivolous” law suits. This, of course, has proven to be unsuccessful and most costly in the grand scheme of things.
It is certainly your right to express whatever thoughts/feelings you may have on this subject but I know, from experience, that this more to this story than lawsuits. By placing limitations, you are putting value on a human life and that’s never a good place to go.