Congrats…

…to a fine Democrat from the upper left, WA State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, who got some positive attention from the New York Times in a piece which confirms what many have long suspected (my emphasis)...

A study to be released today by the Center for Justice and Democracy, a consumer advocacy group in New York, may add fuel to that debate. The study, compiled from regulatory filings by insurers to state regulators, finds that net claims for medical malpractice paid by 15 leading insurance companies have remained flat over the last five years, while net premiums have surged 120 percent.

From 2000 to 2004, the increase in premiums collected by the leading 15 medical malpractice insurance companies was 21 times the increase in the claims they paid, according to the study.

But they need all that premium cash because injured plaintiffs are constantly beating them up in court, right?

Well, no...

According to the association's data, collected on a voluntary basis by its membership, 70 percent of malpractice cases closed in 2003 were dismissed, 24 percent were settled, 5 percent were tried and found in favor of the defendant and 0.8 percent were settled in favor of the plaintiff.

The simple truth is that there's no way to get a handle on the health care crisis in the US without cutting the private insurers out of the deal. They're an industry based on fear, profiting from the spread of misinformation, adding nothing but expense to the actual care of patients.

Every new fact is another step in the long march to single payer heath care for Americans.