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Comment by smoyer | Hacker News Reader

I'm generally conservative too but this won't happen until we have tort reform (which won't happen so long as politics is governed by lawyers).

I heard someone say that health care is completely provided in Australia for about 2% of your gross pay because the leeches have been removed from the process ... is this true?

P.S. Leeches = anyone that inserts themselves into the process without adding meaningfully to the quality of care provided.

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Malpractice litigation increases health care spending by 2.4% [0]. Many states have already passed tort reform that limits how and when a patient can sue and recover. There are lots of factors that increase health costs in this country, but litigation barely registers. Getting insurance companies out of the game (the BIG Leeches, in your example, who take 20% of the dollars in the system) would go a much longer way.

[0]http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/29/9/1569.abstract

Health insurance is far less predatory in Australia. We have a hybrid public-private system, where everybody is covered by single payer universal healthcare (including specialists, but not dental), but if people have the means they can opt for private health insurance to cut down on wait times or have things like remedial massage or optical included.

There are zero cases of bankruptcy due to medical illness, or people being denied care because of a lack of insurance.

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