John Ensign: “we know we live in a litigious society. We are sue happy today. Everything is somebody else's fault, and we immediately…”

“we know we live in a litigious society. We are sue happy today. Everything is somebody else's fault, and we immediately go to court. Because of the nature of our courts, it is easier to settle. When we settle, it drives up the cost for all of us. A lot of the cases never make it because it is too expensive to take the case all the way to court. A lot of companies especially are self-insured for certain amounts of money. It is easier for them to calculate the cost of going to court, and what happens in the long run is that all of us pay for that in higher premiums. When we have higher premiums, it is pretty simple. We end up with a situation where employers cannot afford it. A lot of small employers especially are dropping their health insurance coverage and we are ending up with 41 million uninsured in this country and a big part of that is the cost, not only of the premiums to doctors but just the whole cost of defensive medicine that we have to practice today because of the fear of being sued.”