[quote=afx114]The tort reform faction seems to be making quite a fuss about 1%-2% of the problem:
“If you were to eliminate medical malpractice liability, even forgetting the negative consequences that would have for safety, accountability, and responsiveness, maybe we’d be talking about 1.5 percent of health care costs. So we’re not talking about real money. It’s small relative to the out-of-control cost of health care.”
All the evidence available shows that the liability “crisis” is a myth. Malpractice payments account for less than 1% of the nation’s health care costs each year. Since 1987 medical malpractice insurance costs have risen just 52% despite the fact that medical costs have increased 113%. The size of malpractice damage awards has remained steady since 1991. Adjusted for inflation, the average malpractice payment has actually decreased since then. The number of payments for malpractice judgments of $1 million or more has never exceeded one-half of one percent of the annual total number of malpractice payments dating back to 1991.
However, we also find, in state after state, that the passage of tort reform laws does nothing to reduce overall health care costs. Health care costs and patient insurance premiums continue to increase at the same rate as before, if not faster. And the promised cost reductions from less “defensive medicine” never materialize.
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Thanks for the links, afx. This is what I’ve read elsewhere, too. Quite frankly, if they want to eliminate malpractice lawsuits, it would be more effective if they just tried to avoid making mistakes in the first place. Yes, mistakes happen, but in the medical field, processes should be put in place that reduce these mistakes so they become extremely rare. After all, why can they build and maintain large aircraft (among other things) that have a very miniscule failure rate, but for some reason, we can’t manage to do that with healthcare?
