When Are Doctors Going to Wake Up?

I'm constantly confused by doctors who are so eager to jump on board BushCo's misbegotten tort reform band wagon when they must know that it's the insurance companies that are at the root of rising insurance costs and falling payouts. Maybe their collective subconscious won't allow them to associate the insurance industry, which had been their personal gravy train for so long, with the pain that's being inflicted on them now and so they're only capable of blaming lawyers and patients, the easiest target.

So now there's more news about insurance companies and their pocket pal, BushCo - this time about his wretched Prescription Drug Card scheme. From the Center for American Progress:

The Bush administration has promised the new Medicare drug discount card program will save all seniors money on their medicines. Yet, according to the Boston Globe, the White House allowed drug card industry CEO David Halbert (a longtime Bush campaign contributor) to be involved in the original crafting of the discount card program. The result is a program that enriches drug card companies at the expense of consumers. The cards do not guarantee any price savings for consumers, allowing drug card companies to change their "discounts" at any time in order to maximize profits.

Now, as the program is set to start, the White House has once again looked to its top campaign contributors in deciding which companies it approved to administer the cards. All told, the 73 companies selected gave President Bush and conservatives in Congress more than $5 million since 2000. Of those 73 companies approved by the administration, 20 (almost one third) have been involved in fraud charges. Those 20 companies made more than 60% of the total contributions to Bush and conservatives by drug card companies, calling into question whether the administration overlooked those companies' records because of their financial ties to the Bush Campaign.

It's no surprise, of course, to anyone who pays attention. So why in the world would doctors, who are at the mercy of the insurance industry, continue to throw their lot in with such a notoriously merciless bunch?

Comments

[Dimmy Karras]

Every once in a while, an opportunistic patient will try to bring a bogus case, and that's hell for a doctor to go through, with their whole livelihood on the line. Anything that diminishes the incentive for people to pull stuff like that probably has some appeal to those in the profession. They can still hate the insurance companies too, as many doctors do, but you take what you can get.

[eRobin]

I understand doctors' anger over what they consider lawsuits that try to capitalize on bad luck, but BushCo's tort reform ideas have been proven not to lower insurance costs and his unabashed collusion with the industry to exploit doctors and patients is hardly a secret. I don't get why they can't connect the dots and stay hung up on their anger.