4 ms·

> Hospitals and insurances should be fined if they have a high ratio of claims that get rejected first and reversed after appeal They'd just invest more in not

> Hospitals and insurances should be fined if they have a high ratio of claims that get rejected first and reversed after appeal They'd just invest more in not having to reverse on appeal. Handling these kinds of incentives with rules and strictures gets messy fast.

ryandrake 2y ago
Well, write the law to address that, too. Too often, we throw our hands up and declare legislation impossible "because companies will just get around it in ways, X, Y, and Z". The solution is to write better laws that also remove X, Y, and Z as options. And also X0, X1, Y0, Y1, Y2, Z0, Z1, Z2, Z3, and Z4. The world is complex and regulation can be complex, too. You'll never fix things by giving up and saying "We can't write the perfect law--oh well, let's just let companies do whatever they want!"
- dylan604 2y ago
  The concept of spirit of the law vs letter of the law infuriates me to no end. I think the letter of the law should stipulate the spirit of the law (almost a TL;DR right at the beginning) so that jurists can later take that into account when deciding if the law was broken.
  - 1-more 2y ago
    US Tax law is the only place where I can think of that the spirit is the most important part of the law. There isn't much of a hard and fast definition of a home based business, but if the vibe is "this is a hobby and I'm using the business only to claim deductions, not turn a profit someday" you can be in violation.
  - kredd 2y ago
    I agree in some sense, but spirit of the law also creates very uneven playground and leaves a lot of questions. The way I see the problem, it takes way too long for us to legislate anything. By the time something passes different levels of approval, whoever has any skin in the game might figure out a way around it. That happens a lot with finding loopholes in housing related legislations. If there is a proposal that would hurt investors, they lobby against it for a while, buying time to figure out an alternative method, and by the time it passes, they don’t really care because they’ve circumvented it anyways. I see why it would also suck if we fast tracked most of the legislations though.
    - piva00 2y ago
      > I agree in some sense, but spirit of the law also creates very uneven playground and leaves a lot of questions. That happens anyway though, as much of law in Common Law systems is only settled by precedents, jurisprudence, etc. Even the US's Constitution interpretation is up to the courts when questions arise, that's the courts' job anyhow. At least working with the spirit of the law allows ways to prevent loopholes in a way that the letter of the law process only allows if new legislation is passed to cover those loopholes.
      - vundercind 2y ago
        > Even the US's Constitution interpretation is up to the courts when questions arise, that's the courts' job anyhow. Judicial review of the constitutionality of laws is itself an invention of the courts, in fact. (And probably a good idea, but it’s something the courts had to decide they had, not a role or power plain in the law). So that specific thing being their job is… something they decided was their job, which is kinda funny.
  - xn7 2y ago
    I agree that it’s very frustrating, but law is a language game between opposing parties. There is always going to be willful misinterpretation, because, well, sometimes people want incompatible things. If you add a spirit of the law TLDR, you’ll need a spirit of the spirit of the law, and so on.
  - cataphract 2y ago
    The US obsession with literality in recent times is very sui generis (and even then you have a lot of people criticizing it for not taking further, e.g. the fish is a tangible asset SCOTUS case). In Portugal, the law specifies how it should be interpreted (1966 civil code, art. 9) 1. Interpretation should not be limited to the letter of the law but should reconstruct the legislative intent from the texts, taking into account the unity of the legal system, the circumstances in which the law was drafted, and the specific conditions of the time when it is applied. 2. However, the interpreter cannot consider a legislative intent that does not have at least a minimal verbal correspondence in the letter of the law, even if it is imperfectly expressed. 3. In determining the meaning and scope of the law, the interpreter will presume that the legislator has adopted the most appropriate solutions and has expressed their intent in suitable terms. It doesn't help make the meaning of the text more determinate, but it may shift where the battle is fought.
    - giantg2 2y ago
      This is pretty similar to most US case law and judiciary rules on how the law should be interpreted.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    Most laws have preambles and records of the debates to help with their intent. The theory of strict construction is a protection in our legal system. Otherwise you'll end up with a system similar to the insurance you're complaining about - generalized rules, you won't know the outcome going into it, and they can find ways to make the rules for the desired outcome. (This stuff happens in the legal system today, it would just get immensely worse)
  - adolph 2y ago
    If the letter doesn't follow the spirit then fix the letter, don't add on more crust. https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
  - silverquiet 2y ago
    As I've gotten older, I've found that I've lost a lot of belief in the law at all. Despite being rather clever, we are still primates who live in primate societies. Some of us are greedy psychopaths and some of us are generous empaths. If you put the greedy psychopaths in power, it will have deleterious effects on society regardless of whatever scribbles you have on paper.
- willcipriano 2y ago
  Most of the time the "we oughta do" ideas are so simple that they wouldn't work as a law "it should be illegal to charge too high prices!" so it's sort of a non-solution as it factually wouldn't work in the real world. Real talk, the US spends more on socialized medicine per capita than all of Europe, nobody should get reelected, no foreign aid rendered nor bombs dropped until we receive what has been long paid for. They want you to focus on the former sort of "solution" than the one I provide and that's why you probably are first hearing of mine now.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    > it should be illegal to charge too high prices! Funnily enough, as far as I have been able to figure, this is basically the unifying element of all developed-country healthcare systems outside the US, which have a lot of variety but all seem to do this, one way or another. Some do it with comprehensive direct price controls that are pretty much exactly “it’s illegal to charge too-high prices” (Japan), some through state monopsony (Great Britain), some through limited price controls but the very-credible threat of adding more if providers get too greedy (Singapore), and many through some combo of the above, but the effect always boils down to price controls.
    - willcipriano 2y ago
      You misunderstand. In nations with socialized medicine (and this includes the US) there is really only one primary buyer of healthcare products and services. If that buyer decides your price is too high, you sell around 0 units. You can often receive these treatments if you wish to pay privately. Only the very wealthy do this, a small market. Drug companies in the US prefer to sell units at the prices that the buyers in those nations are allowing them VS not selling them at all. That's why they do it. Then turn around and say they can't do the same in the US as it would bankrupt them. The difference is in the US, Medicaid is quite happy to pay prices that are multiples of what other nations are paying. They sort of pretend this is all some sort of accident or due to some complexity that you wouldn't understand but it's just theft.
      - 2y ago
rqtwteye 2y ago
“ They'd just invest more in not having to reverse on appeal” That would be the goal. Get it right first time around.
- WaxProlix 2y ago
  "Invest" here doesn't necessarily mean monetary investment, they could for instance choose to degrade their arbitration and appeals process further, understaff it, or push regulatory boundaries in that direction. And that would possibly save them money, at least in the short term. And to the extent that costs do go up for appeals processes, there's no guarantee that the resulting setup has margins that incentivize doing right by customers at all.
  - rqtwteye 2y ago
    That could be solved by proper regulation. As far as I can tell they are already making the process as miserable as possible. I don’t think it would get worse.

ryandrake 2y ago

Well, write the law to address that, too. Too often, we throw our hands up and declare legislation impossible "because companies will just get around it in ways, X, Y, and Z". The solution is to write better laws that also remove X, Y, and Z as options. And also X0, X1, Y0, Y1, Y2, Z0, Z1, Z2, Z3, and Z4. The world is complex and regulation can be complex, too. You'll never fix things by giving up and saying "We can't write the perfect law--oh well, let's just let companies do whatever they want!"

dylan604 2y ago
The concept of spirit of the law vs letter of the law infuriates me to no end. I think the letter of the law should stipulate the spirit of the law (almost a TL;DR right at the beginning) so that jurists can later take that into account when deciding if the law was broken.
- 1-more 2y ago
  US Tax law is the only place where I can think of that the spirit is the most important part of the law. There isn't much of a hard and fast definition of a home based business, but if the vibe is "this is a hobby and I'm using the business only to claim deductions, not turn a profit someday" you can be in violation.
- kredd 2y ago
  I agree in some sense, but spirit of the law also creates very uneven playground and leaves a lot of questions. The way I see the problem, it takes way too long for us to legislate anything. By the time something passes different levels of approval, whoever has any skin in the game might figure out a way around it. That happens a lot with finding loopholes in housing related legislations. If there is a proposal that would hurt investors, they lobby against it for a while, buying time to figure out an alternative method, and by the time it passes, they don’t really care because they’ve circumvented it anyways. I see why it would also suck if we fast tracked most of the legislations though.
  - piva00 2y ago
    > I agree in some sense, but spirit of the law also creates very uneven playground and leaves a lot of questions. That happens anyway though, as much of law in Common Law systems is only settled by precedents, jurisprudence, etc. Even the US's Constitution interpretation is up to the courts when questions arise, that's the courts' job anyhow. At least working with the spirit of the law allows ways to prevent loopholes in a way that the letter of the law process only allows if new legislation is passed to cover those loopholes.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      > Even the US's Constitution interpretation is up to the courts when questions arise, that's the courts' job anyhow. Judicial review of the constitutionality of laws is itself an invention of the courts, in fact. (And probably a good idea, but it’s something the courts had to decide they had, not a role or power plain in the law). So that specific thing being their job is… something they decided was their job, which is kinda funny.
- xn7 2y ago
  I agree that it’s very frustrating, but law is a language game between opposing parties. There is always going to be willful misinterpretation, because, well, sometimes people want incompatible things. If you add a spirit of the law TLDR, you’ll need a spirit of the spirit of the law, and so on.
- cataphract 2y ago
  The US obsession with literality in recent times is very sui generis (and even then you have a lot of people criticizing it for not taking further, e.g. the fish is a tangible asset SCOTUS case). In Portugal, the law specifies how it should be interpreted (1966 civil code, art. 9) 1. Interpretation should not be limited to the letter of the law but should reconstruct the legislative intent from the texts, taking into account the unity of the legal system, the circumstances in which the law was drafted, and the specific conditions of the time when it is applied. 2. However, the interpreter cannot consider a legislative intent that does not have at least a minimal verbal correspondence in the letter of the law, even if it is imperfectly expressed. 3. In determining the meaning and scope of the law, the interpreter will presume that the legislator has adopted the most appropriate solutions and has expressed their intent in suitable terms. It doesn't help make the meaning of the text more determinate, but it may shift where the battle is fought.
  - giantg2 2y ago
    This is pretty similar to most US case law and judiciary rules on how the law should be interpreted.
- giantg2 2y ago
  Most laws have preambles and records of the debates to help with their intent. The theory of strict construction is a protection in our legal system. Otherwise you'll end up with a system similar to the insurance you're complaining about - generalized rules, you won't know the outcome going into it, and they can find ways to make the rules for the desired outcome. (This stuff happens in the legal system today, it would just get immensely worse)
- adolph 2y ago
  If the letter doesn't follow the spirit then fix the letter, don't add on more crust. https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/
- silverquiet 2y ago
  As I've gotten older, I've found that I've lost a lot of belief in the law at all. Despite being rather clever, we are still primates who live in primate societies. Some of us are greedy psychopaths and some of us are generous empaths. If you put the greedy psychopaths in power, it will have deleterious effects on society regardless of whatever scribbles you have on paper.
willcipriano 2y ago
Most of the time the "we oughta do" ideas are so simple that they wouldn't work as a law "it should be illegal to charge too high prices!" so it's sort of a non-solution as it factually wouldn't work in the real world. Real talk, the US spends more on socialized medicine per capita than all of Europe, nobody should get reelected, no foreign aid rendered nor bombs dropped until we receive what has been long paid for. They want you to focus on the former sort of "solution" than the one I provide and that's why you probably are first hearing of mine now.
- vundercind 2y ago
  > it should be illegal to charge too high prices! Funnily enough, as far as I have been able to figure, this is basically the unifying element of all developed-country healthcare systems outside the US, which have a lot of variety but all seem to do this, one way or another. Some do it with comprehensive direct price controls that are pretty much exactly “it’s illegal to charge too-high prices” (Japan), some through state monopsony (Great Britain), some through limited price controls but the very-credible threat of adding more if providers get too greedy (Singapore), and many through some combo of the above, but the effect always boils down to price controls.
  - willcipriano 2y ago
    You misunderstand. In nations with socialized medicine (and this includes the US) there is really only one primary buyer of healthcare products and services. If that buyer decides your price is too high, you sell around 0 units. You can often receive these treatments if you wish to pay privately. Only the very wealthy do this, a small market. Drug companies in the US prefer to sell units at the prices that the buyers in those nations are allowing them VS not selling them at all. That's why they do it. Then turn around and say they can't do the same in the US as it would bankrupt them. The difference is in the US, Medicaid is quite happy to pay prices that are multiples of what other nations are paying. They sort of pretend this is all some sort of accident or due to some complexity that you wouldn't understand but it's just theft.
    - 2y ago

rqtwteye 2y ago

“ They'd just invest more in not having to reverse on appeal” That would be the goal. Get it right first time around.

WaxProlix 2y ago
"Invest" here doesn't necessarily mean monetary investment, they could for instance choose to degrade their arbitration and appeals process further, understaff it, or push regulatory boundaries in that direction. And that would possibly save them money, at least in the short term. And to the extent that costs do go up for appeals processes, there's no guarantee that the resulting setup has margins that incentivize doing right by customers at all.
- rqtwteye 2y ago
  That could be solved by proper regulation. As far as I can tell they are already making the process as miserable as possible. I don’t think it would get worse.