Restitution Discussion Group Archives
| Sender: |
Allan Axelrod |
| Date: |
Fri, 20 Sep 2002 13:06:19 -0400 |
| Re: |
Recovery of hospital and ambulance costs |
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Hedley"
...... As to the merits of the proposal,
I suppose it is really a question of whether the end (to get more money
for the NHS) justify the means (making the customers of dangerous employers
pay more). Stated in practical terms, the proposal is to charge the
insurers of tortfeasors for NHS costs occasioned by the tort. The insurers
will, of course, pass this on to their clients (overwhelmingly private
employers). The private employers will, of course, pass it on to their
customers. But will the customers notice? Para 4.16 notes that while
the proposal means an increase of about 7% in insurance premiums, in
fact those same premiums are about to go through the roof for quite
different reasons. So, nudge nudge wink wink, if the government enacts
this proposal very quickly, they will be able to extract the contemplated
£120m from the public without anyone noticing. If anyone questions why
premiums have gone up, it is calculated that this contribution will
seem too small to mention.
Whether this is regarded as astute
financial planning, or as a cynical way of raising the public burden
on the taxpayer without having to admit what they are up to, may simply
be a matter of taste.
================
the american law-economics people take the view that
the end of charging full costs against a tort-feasor is first to encourage
greater care, but second to increase economic efficiency by requiring
consumers to pay the full costs [including accident costs] of the activities
by which their needs are satisfied--- without such a requirement particular
sorts of consumption will be 'subsidized' by whoever bears the costs that said, the impact of a new rule imposing a cost
on an entrepreneur may be a corresponding increase in insurance rates
and a corresponding increase in price; on the other hand the market circumstances
of the business may be such that it cannot mark up to recover the full
costs, the unrecovered portion then being a reduction in the owner's dividends,
or even in more subtle cases passed back to suppliers
all of which is a memory from the years back when i studied
this: the topic was a standard chapter in economics books--- usually under
the heading of the 'incidence' of a new tax
[unless that should be 'whomever'??]
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