|
Adverse Health & Economic Impact of Lawsuit Lottery
Mentality
[you are now at Dr. Shaw's personal
website]
While accountability is a cornerstone of a
representative democratic society, 2007 sees more & more of a "gotcha!" mentality in the USA. It is for
the sake of cashing in on a less-than-perfect outcome..."winning"...& not for the prime
purpose of improving society. The result?...some would characterize it as: America’s
tort tax: 77,000 lives, plus $865 billion per year. Situation summary (published
4/7/2007) from another organization:
"If comprehensive tort reform had been adopted in
the states, more than 77,000 additional people would be alive and contributing to the work
force, conclude researchers Lawrence J. McQuillan and Hovannes Abramyan, in a study released
by the Pacific Research Institute (do a search on that website for "tort tax").
"This is because an overly expensive liability
system increases the cost of risk-reducing good and services.
"The static cost of litigation—damage awards,
plaintiffs’ and defendants’ lawyers fees, and administrative costs—amount to $328 billion per
year, an estimate much higher than previous estimates from a Tillinghast-Towers Perrin study.
But this is only the beginning.
"Litigation changes behavior, and these dynamic
costs amount to some $537 billion per year, researchers conclude. These include: defensive
medicine ($124 billion), productivity losses from reduced access to medical care ($39
billion), the impact of forgone research and development, and lost sales of new
products.
"The loss to the U.S. economy of $865 billion per
year constitutes an annual “tort tax” of $9,827 on the average family of four (Wall Street Journal 3/27/07). The tort tax is 27 times more than the federal
government spends on homeland security and 30 times what the National Institutes of Health
dedicate to research on deadly diseases. America’s tort costs amount to 2.2 percent of the GDP,
compared to 0.7 percent for the UK, 0.8 percent for Japan, and 1.1 percent for
Germany.
"Lawsuits against American corporations generate
an annual loss of $684 billion in shareholder value. Half of all U.S. shareholders are
individuals of modest means.
"More than 51,000 U.S. jobs have been lost because
of asbestos litigation-related bankruptcies alone. Employees at these bankrupted companies
lost $559 million in pension benefits." [see "Jackpot Justice" HERE]
***give me your comments about this
page***
check out the Highest
TRUTH
(posted 8 April 2007)
|