Well first of all I have to agree with you completely with the first and the last statement. I hate trying to have intelligent conversations with punctationally impaired extremists. Also, I completely agree that abuses of our legal system is taxing the system. I mean just look at the backups in some of the civil courts, and our obsession with real court shows as entertainment to know the legal system may be in need of some reform.

Any way, back to to the issue at hand. First about the insurance companies. I understand how insurance premiums work, and I think maybe you may have understood what I was saying. I am arguing that insurance and (especially) healthcare companies find it easier to sell claim that frivolous lawsuits are the cause of high health care costs. The public is alot more interested in the person who sued a doctor for malpractice than they are about inefficentcies in the health care system. They are more apt to buy into that sort of reasoning. I am not saying that the insurance companies are in a collusion, although I don't think they are doing too badly. I think that the effect of obsession over high health care costs as a result of legal problems, loosens the competive environment in the industry and allows these inefficentcies to linger. I know my father has gotten multiple bills for the same treatment, and they set my mother a bill for medical treatment she was supposed to have recieved 3 months after she died. The health care system has been able to float in an environment where it is easier to blame frivoulous lawsuits instead of concentrating on better business strategies. (there are no price setters in this industry, they all price followers, it is a form of non-cooperative collution) Finally it is the doctors who are feeling the pinch, and you and I who are paying for it. Basically I am arguing that the health care system needs to be reformed to help reduce health care costs. I am not letting the legal system off the hook though, it has problems too.