Tort System or Taxpayers? Choose Wisely.

I have spent the past five years in Sweden. Yes, it is a hell of a commute from Stockholm to Tampa.

When people in Sweden ask me what I do, I tell them I am a trial lawyer.

The response is usually the same.

“Oh… tobacco lawsuits, right?”

They don’t understand how our system works. More importantly, they don’t understand why it exists.

Two Systems. One Reality.

In Sweden, the system is simple.

Healthcare is universal. Social support exists. If something goes wrong, the system catches you.

In the United States, it is different.

We do not provide the same level of social welfare. We do not have universal healthcare. We do not have a system that automatically absorbs the cost of injury.

So when something goes wrong here, someone has to pay.

The Role of the Tort System

This is where the tort system comes in.

It is not about greed. It is not about opportunism. It is a mechanism.

It is the system that assigns responsibility when harm is caused.

Take that away, and the question becomes unavoidable:

Who pays?

You Don’t Eliminate Cost. You Move It.

Much of the “tort reform” conversation focuses on reducing lawsuits.

But reducing lawsuits does not eliminate cost. It simply shifts it.

In the United States, the sequence is predictable:

• The injured person pays first
• They burn through savings
• They fall into financial distress
• Eventually, the taxpayer absorbs the cost through Medicaid

The system does not disappear. It just changes who carries the burden.

The False Choice

As Eric Turkewitz put it:

We are faced with a choice. Either parties resolve disputes privately, or the government steps in with support. You can have one or the other. What you cannot have is both limited private rights and limited government support.

That is the part most people ignore.

You cannot dismantle the tort system without replacing it with something else.

The Sweden Comparison Everyone Misses

Sweden works because the system is funded.

Heavily funded.

High taxes. Broad support. A population that buys into the model.

That is the trade-off.

If you remove the ability for injured people to recover losses from those responsible, then you must accept the alternative.

And that alternative is taxpayer burden.

The Real Question

At the end of the day, this is not a legal debate.

It is a responsibility question.

When harm is caused, who should carry the cost?

• The person or business responsible?
• Or the taxpayer?

You do not get to remove the cost entirely.

You only decide where it lands.

Choose Wisely

Because once you shift that burden, there is no quiet way to shift it back.