Let’s Stop Passing the Buck on Asbestos Costs

Cuts in state budgets are causing cutbacks in environmental protection. A recent example — Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division effectively ended its asbestos inspection program last month. This allowed the state to cut staff and save $179,000 per year.

However, are such budget cuts really cost effective in the long run? The cost of caring for people with mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases are far higher than $179,000 per year. And whether such costs are paid by insurance companies, government programs or jury awards, or borne by health care providers, we all end up paying for those costs, directly or indirectly. The costs may be spread out to all of us through higher health care costs and insurance premiums, for example.

To me, this illustrates how some government budget cutting is just a pass-the-buck strategy that ends up costing all of us more in the long run. For example, “tort reform” often is sold to voters as a way to cut health care costs by lowering physicians’ malpractice insurance premiums. In states that have passed tort reform measures, such as Texas, physicians’ malpractice insurance premiums often do go down. But health care costs themselves do not go down, and the cost of health insurance continues to rise.

There are a great many complex factors contributing to health care costs. The important point here is that when businesses are protected from litigation through “tort reform,” the costs of caring for people harmed in unsafe workplaces or by unsafe products do not disappear. So who pays for those costs, if not those responsible? The answer, seems to me, is all of us, one way or another.

By its own laws, the state of Georgia must operate within a balanced budget, so in the short run the state may have no other choice but to cut many useful programs. In the long run, however, we ought to be thinking about overall cost effectiveness of government programs. Spending $179,000 per year now might save Georgians from spending millions later.

April 6, 2009
Barbara O’Brien

This entry was posted on Monday, April 6th, 2009 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.