In the US you can't "shop for price" when it comes to medical care even if we manage to remove the moral hazard involved with it. Why? Malpractice cases. If there's even the slightest risk of a serious problem the doctor MUST order a legion of super-expensive tests to cover his own ***. If he doesn't, and you are the <1% that has the serious illness, you can sue him for millions. You are not allowed to make an agreement with the doctor that you'll accept treatment for the "most likely" diagnosis and accept the risk. If you refuse to pay for (or have insurance pay for) the $5000 MRI, he's not going to diagnose you, and he's not going to prescribe anything for you.

Doesn't the Lasik example discussed in Dash' video prove that it would work? Why is malpractice not an issue there?

There's a reason the most popular/lucrative medical field is dermatology ...

Civil Malpractice suits are barely a drop in the bucket of our overall medical cost issues. Tort reform is largely a means of turning consequences for horrible crap into just another cost of doing business. Yes, doctors pay huge insurance premiums for malpractice insurance companies. But that doesn't mean tort reform would do anything to really help the overall medical cost issue we have in this country.

Civil Malpractice suits are barely a drop in the bucket of our overall medical cost issues. Tort reform is largely a means of turning consequences for horrible crap into just another cost of doing business. Yes, doctors pay huge insurance premiums for malpractice insurance companies. But that doesn't mean tort reform would do anything to really help the overall medical cost issue we have in this country.

DFK!, I notice you are missing some links to back up your assertions.

• Malpractice is the culprit Doctors say their worries about lawsuits drive them to order costly tests and procedures that their patients do not actually need. Malpractice reform will help save money, but not as much as some people believe. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that while tort reforms could lower malpractice-insurance premiums for physicians by as much as 25 to 30 percent, the overall savings to our health care system would be a minuscule one-half percent.

Evidence from the states indicates that premiums for malpractice
insurance are lower when tort liability is restricted
than they would be otherwise. But even large savings
in premiums can have only a small direct impact on
health care spending—private or governmental—because
malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of that
spending.3

Even so, health-care experts say the direct costs of medical malpractice -- the insurance premiums, claims paid and legal fees -- amount to a very small portion of overall health-care spending.

Total spending on medical malpractice, including legal-defense costs and claims payments, was $30.41 billion in 2007, according to an estimate from consulting firm Towers Perrin. That is a significant figure, but it still amounts to a little more than 1% of total U.S. health-care spending, which the federal government estimates at $2.241 trillion for 2007.

Thank you. I find this to be sufficient corroboration to your claim for my purposes. I appreciate the effort you have undergone to assist in establishing the veracity of your position.

Thank you. I find this to be sufficient corroboration to your claim for my purposes. I appreciate the effort you have undergone to assist in establishing the veracity of your position.

"Cost of doing business" is exactly what malpractice is now. What do you think a doctor does after he loses a malpractice suit? His insurance pays for it, and he goes right back to practicing. The problem is doctors don't lose their licenses unless they did something truly horrible. A doctor that hurts someone should lose their license or go to prison, the suing for millions is ridiculous and just **** up everyone elses medical care.