The Glade 4.0

A Doctor's Plan for Legal Industry Reform

Since we are moving toward socialism with ObamaCare, the time has come to do the same with other professions—especially lawyers. Physician committees can decide whether lawyers are necessary in any given situation.

At a town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., last month, our uninformed lawyer in chief suggested that we physicians would rather chop off a foot than manage diabetes since we would make more money doing surgery. Then President Obama compounded his attack by claiming a doctor's reimbursement is between "$30,000" and "$50,000" for such amputations! (Actually, such surgery costs only about $1,500.)

Physicians have never been so insulted. Because of these affronts, I will gladly volunteer for the important duty of controlling and regulating lawyers. Since most of what lawyers do is repetitive boilerplate or pushing paper, physicians would have no problem dictating what is appropriate for attorneys. We physicians know much more about legal practice than lawyers do about medicine.

Following are highlights of a proposed bill authorizing the dismantling of the current framework of law practice and instituting socialized legal care:

• Contingency fees will be discouraged, and eventually outlawed, over a five-year period. This will put legal rewards back into the pockets of the deserving—the public and the aggrieved parties. Slick lawyers taking their "cut" smacks of a bookie operation. Attorneys will be permitted to keep up to 3% in contingency cases, the remainder going into a pool for poor people.

• Legal "DRGs." Each potential legal situation will be assigned a relative value, and charges limited to this amount. Program participation and acceptance of this amount is mandatory, regardless of the number of hours spent on the matter. Government schedules of flat fees for each service, analogous to medicine's Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs), will be issued. For example, any divorce will have a set fee of, say, $1,000, regardless of its simplicity or complexity. This will eliminate shady hourly billing. Niggling fees such as $2 per page photocopied or faxed would disappear. Who else nickels-and-dimes you while at the same time charging hundreds of dollars per hour? I'm surprised lawyers don't tack shipping and handling onto their bills.

• Legal "death panels." Over 75? You will not be entitled to legal care for any matter. Why waste money on those who are only going to die soon? We can decrease utilization, save money and unclog the courts simultaneously. Grandma, you're on your own.

• Ration legal care. One may need to wait months to consult an attorney. Despite a perceived legal need, physician review panels or government bureaucrats may deem advice unnecessary. Possibly one may not get representation before court dates or deadlines. But that' s tough: What do you want for "free"?

• Physician controlled legal review. This is potentially the most exciting reform, with doctors leading committees for determining the necessity of all legal procedures and the fairness of attorney fees. What a wonderful way for doctors to get even with the sharks attempting to eviscerate the practice of medicine.

• Discourage/eliminate specialization. Legal specialists with extra training and experience charge more money, contributing to increased costs of legal care, making it unaffordable for many. This reform will guarantee a selection of mediocre, unmotivated attorneys but should help slow rising legal costs. Big shot under indictment? Classified National Archives documents down your pants? Sitting president defending against impeachment? Have FBI agents found $90,000 in your freezer? Too bad. Under reform you too may have to go to the government legal shop for advice.

• Electronic legal records. We should enter the digital age and computerize and centralize legal records nationwide. All files must be in a standard, preferably inconvenient, format and must be available to government agencies. A single database of judgments, court records, client files, etc. will decrease legal expenses. Anyone with Internet access will be able to search the database, eliminating unjustifiable fees charged by law firms for supposedly proprietary information, while fostering transparency. It will enable consumers to dump their clunker attorneys and transfer records easily.

• Ban legal advertisements. Catchy phone numbers such as 1-800-LAWYERS would be seized by the government and repurposed for reporting unscrupulous attorneys.

• New government oversight. Government overhead to manage the legal system will include a cabinet secretary, commissioners, ombudsmen, auditors, assistants, czars and departments.

• Collect data about the supply of and demand for attorneys. Create a commission to study the diversity and geographic distribution of attorneys, with power to stipulate and enforce corrective actions to right imbalances. The more bureaucracy the better. One can never have too many eyes watching these sleazy sneaks.

• Lawyer Reduction Act (H.R. -3200). A self-explanatory bill that not only decreases the number of law students, but also arbitrarily removes 3,200 attorneys from practice each year. Textbook addition by subtraction.

Enthusiastically embracing the above legal changes can serve as a "teachable moment" and will go a long way toward giving the lawyers who run Congress a taste of their own medicine.

—Dr. Rafal is a radiologist in New York City.

I'm tired of Big Legal raking in profits while the poor are going unrepresented. We need a public representation option. Oh wait...

I'm tired of Big Legal raking in profits while the poor are going unrepresented. We need a public representation option. Oh wait...

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

If I demand a lawyer to represent me criminally, that lawyer is appointed. I get the service.

If you are charged with burglary, you must be provided an attorney, if you do not have or cannot afford one of your own. If you will note, no guarantees are made regarding their quality, beyond the bare minimum.

Insurance companies aren't there to improve quality. That's the provider's job. Insurance companies are there to guard against catastrophic events.

So, my next question is, why do we have them at all? It seems to me that insurance companies do two things very well - skim money from people for a service necessary for their lives, and then avoid paying those services or simply drop people from coverage.

We could simply expand Medicare to cover all Americans, have anyone pre-retirement age pay a premium in addition to their normal medicare taxes, and then let private insurance companies deal with things like cosmetic surgery and the like.

He just answered why we have them: "to guard against catastrophic events".

Why do we have auto insurance or homeowner's insurance?

Medical insurance have expanded in their role beyond this scope to negotiate bulk contract services with providers because of the nature of health care.

If health care insurance carriers provide no service, then why are they offered as "benefits" by employers that employees opt in to pay for the service?

I think your issue lies with health-care providers, not insurance carriers. do you care to validate your theory that insurance companies should be involved at all with things like cosmetic surgery given the stated function of an insurance carrier?

That isn't what our health insurance companies do. In fact, if you have a catastrophic event, you can be dropped from your insurance, and will likely be unable to get insured by any other company due to your "pre-existing condition".

In addition to that, if my car is totaled, I get a single check that pays for the cost of replacement. I am not going to spend the next 10 months in a hospital bed and have one check to cover it. It's a lot more complicated than that.

Health care is a right, not a good.

You have stated a function for health insurance that is simply not accurate. Most health insurance is comprehensive because of the nature of human health care. However, it also drives up the price of health care considerably, and provides no measurable benefit to the quality of health care. We basically subsidize salaries, profit margins, and huge administrative costs just to have access to a living need.

Did you know?
If your coverage is a group health plan, this is illegal under Federal law.

Health care is as much a right as water and air. I know you disagree with me, but that doesn't actually change my mind. Health care is not a commodity. It is not a good. It's a right.