Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

Five steps to real health care reform

Here are the factors that must be addressed to reduce health care costs:

• Tort reform. Legislation should be passed to set malpractice award caps or make the loser pay all costs of the litigation. Some analysts state this could significantly reduce costs, because of the practice of defensive medicine.

• Pharmaceutical reform. We should finally allow the federal government to negotiate major discounts for Medicare. Wal-Mart does it. Also, we should allow cheaper drugs to be imported. We hear about the Canadian heath care system as a model, but we do not allow their cheaper medicines into the United States.

• Enforcement of immigration laws. The financial drain on both public and private hospitals has reached epidemic proportions for the treatment of undocumented workers. Enforcing these laws could reduce health care costs.

• Health insurance portability. Make competition nationwide, not state-by-state.

• Modernization of the bureaucratic matrix. The health care industry, both public and private, is one of the last industries to modernize processes of documentation and payment. Both systems continue to be vulnerable to fraud.

Will the public or special interests be served?

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