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Universal health care could relieve tort system

By MARTIN DYCKMAN
Published April 24, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - Two forms of class warfare are endless here. Taxation is one; after this session, under the deals cut last week, nothing but a token will remain of the only tax that the state collects on accumulated wealth. A couple that now pays $500 a year on a million-dollar stock and bond portfolio will see that bill cut neatly in half. But for Senate President Tom Lee's concern over future deficits, that token would be gone too.

The session's other class war battle remains undecided. It's the one in which the big business lobbies are forever trying to make it harder if not impossible for people to sue them. If that campaign is hotter than it was expected to be this year, it's likely because time is running out for the best friend they have ever had in the governor's office.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which is the opposite extreme so far as the business lobbies are concerned, exacted bipartisan compromises on premises and product liability and class actions, though there was a sharp fight over a bill to limit asbestos lawsuits.

The Democrats were particularly pleased with the products liability compromise, which keeps retailers on the hook for products manufactured outside the United States - a "good pro-American amendment," as Sen. Walter "Skip" Campbell, D-Tamarac, put it. Environmental lobbyists who had been in a lather over the original version of the class action bill praised the outcome, which passed 8-0.

The business lobbyists let those things happen because they had no choice. The committee otherwise would have killed their bills. So they chose to take the fight to the Senate floor in hope that the versions proposed by the much more business-friendly House of Representatives will eventually prevail.

"I'm just concerned when I hear so many people saying, "I hope we can continue to work with you on that,' " remarked Sen. Steve Geller, D-Hallandale. "I hope we don't see these amended in ways that would not have passed this committee . . . the bait and switch that sometimes happens in the Legislature."

Sometimes? That was too kind.

The question no side ever asks in the unending debate over civil litigation, or "tort reform" as the business lobbies euphemize it, is how much pressure and expense would be relieved by the enactment of a universal national health care system.

It has often been pointed out, here and in other forums, that universal health care would be the best possible form of economic incentive. An article in the current Washington Monthly posits that it would also be an enormous contribution to individual freedom.

"Countless Americans today," writes William A. Galston, a former assistant to President Bill Clinton, "are stuck in unrewarding jobs which they would like to leave - to start a new business or go back to college to upgrade their skills - but dare not, because doing so would deprive themselves and their families of health insurance. A system of universal health care would allow all Americans to pursue their dreams and take more risks."

It ought to occur to the business lobbies that universal health care - and by this I mean no-fault insurance, regardless of where or how someone is hurt - would also remove one of the major incentives for lawsuits. There would still be actions for lost income, pain and suffering and so forth. Society would still need the tort system to discipline people who put profits above public safety. But the total cost in legal expenses and claims paid would surely be much less.

Consider three ways to break a leg. If it happens on the job, worker's compensation pays. In a car wreck, auto insurance pays. Fall off a ladder at home, health insurance pays, and tough luck if you don't have it. So perhaps you sue the ladder company. A lot of money is wasted just to figure out who pays.

Yet one thing is certain: Someone pays to fix that leg. For people without insurance, it's often the taxpayers. Why should more money be spent litigating over who's to blame and who should pay? The business lobbyists are right, after all, about one thing: a dollar spent litigating may be a dollar less available for healing.

"The biggest cost we deal with is health care," remarked Rep. Jack Seiler, D-Wilton Manors, who is a plaintiff's lawyer. "If you had health care taken out of it, it would make a night and day difference to the tort system."

In my impromptu survey, even some business lobbyists agreed that universal no-fault health care would relieve pressure on the tort system. That did not mean, however, that they would support it. As Clinton found out, there is no mountain so hard to climb.

Martin Dyckman's e-mail address is dyckman@sptimes.com

[Last modified April 24, 2005, 01:03:20]