Posted On: September 20, 2009
Health care issues: Medical malpractice lawsuits
A recent article broke down the key issues in the health care debate and supported assertions with nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office Data (AP for FindLaw, 9/10). As a medical malpractice lawyer, I am pleased to see the use of unbiased data to explain realistic conclusions. We have finite resources to address very complex healthcare issues, thus reform should be efficiently targeted.
The key issue addressed by the article was whether restrictions on medical malpractice lawsuits mean cheaper health insurance. The short answer is, if at all, not by much.
To summarize a large issue succinctly, the article stated:
Lawsuits - or the threat of them - can drive up health care costs in several ways, but it's questionable by how much. Most directly, malpractice insurance is expensive for medical professionals, and for lawyers as it can cost upward of $100,000 to bring a case to court. Still, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated last year that savings achieved by limiting medical liability would amount to less than 0.5 percent of health care spending. In addition, the office studied states with their own controls on medical lawsuits and found no proof that those limits have reduced "defensive medicine" - expensive and unnecessary tests and procedures ordered by a doctor only to reduce the risk of a lawsuit.
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