According to the actuarial consulting firm Towers Perrin, medical malpractice tort costs were $30.4 billion in 2007, the last year for which data are available.
We have a more than a $2 trillion health care system. That puts litigation costs and malpractice insurance at 1 to 1.5 percent of total medical costs. That’s a rounding error.
Liability isn’t even the tail on the cost dog. It’s the hair on the end of the tail.
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7 comments:
Terry,
I love the fact that $30 billion is now a rounding area to you. You have come a long way!
I admire you for advocating for the disadvantaged and the disenfranchised, but please don't be a knee jerk liberal. You aren't a jerk, so don't be jerky.
You know that tort reform is a legitimate issue, and you know that defensive medicine is a real and unnecessary cost. You weaken your position when you defend the indefensible.
Ambulance chasers suck. Don't support them.
Mike.
Terry's numbers are correct, though they do not calculate the psychological cost of healers practicing under the gun nor the genuine costs of defensive medicine (often overstated) . The GOP suggests that tort reform is the magic bullet to bring down health care costs and it just isn't so.
We do need tort reform across the board - not just in health care. The bar needs to be raised - perhaps require "clear and convincing" proof rather than merely "preponderance of the evidence". Punitive damages need to be all but eliminated, save for clearly egregious, intentional behavior.
That said, we still need accountability. The system needs to protect consumers. If I build a house that collapses two years later, the buyer certainly ought to have meaningful recourse. If a physician chops the wrong leg off or leaves a sponge inside the patient, significant compensation will be in order. As long as humans are involved, there will be accidents, mistakes and torts. The system simply needs to be rationalized for everyone's benefit.
Terry again tries to simplify the issue and just list actual tort costs. Rich rightly points out the cost of defensive medicine but tries to downplay it.
If the Democratic party would stop trying to protect tort lawyers due to their status as a special interest group that has paid the Democratic party off with their contributions the majority of the public would believe that they are actually trying to fix the health care problems instead of creating another massive entitlement program that will give government control of 6% of the US economy and redistribute wealth from the haves to the have nots.
A quick fix would be to institute the same laws concerning torts that all the countries that have government sponsored health care has. Get rid of the contingent lawsuits and make the lawyers bill by the hour and if you bring a lawsuit and lose you should have tp pay the legal costs of the defendant. These changes would go a long way to fixing the tremendous cost of defensive medicine and eliminate the associated cost of all of the extra tests that are done to avoid lawsuits.
If you have a real cause of action you would still be able to sue and the actual award would go to the party that was damaged not just two thirds. In my opinion this would be much fairer than our current system that is perpetuated by the Democratic party and their protection of the tort industry. It is extremely hypocritical to say you are in favor of lower health care costs yet do not do anything about the costs associated with the tort industry.
Liberals...there is just so much that they say that just isn't so.
I just signed a $44 K malpractice insurance payment. Studies, done not at the front line of health care cannot possible estimate the cost. More likely they reaffirm a predetermined position.
Terry, if you don't think that (for example) ER docs don't order extra testing to cover their asses you are smoking lots of Mo Jo.
We have a system with the consumers do not care how much the services they receive cost (because it is paid for by their insurance companies or medicare) and the deliveries of health care need to cover their butts to prevent a devastating lawsuit...which is a recipe for...a mess.
We need competition and patient involvement in health care costs. The opposite of the current direction.
Terry, between this post and the whacko, Nuclear Blast, you must be smoking Mo Jo!!!
Mark and I - AMAZINGLY - agree on much here. That said, I would not ban contingent contracts between plaintiff's and their attorneys. Otherwise, anyone with few means (half the population) will be effectively shut out of the system. Besides, what kind of free-market capitalist would want to interfere with the right to contract between parties?
As a Democrat, I wish the party would move away from the plaintiff's bar. Like most special interest groups, they are cynical and selfish. Unfortunately, they are more effective than most of their peers.
Hags the rounding error is a joke to the post its 100 billion problem. Yes tort reform is needed. There I said it, I only made the point it is not the majic bullet or even close. Yes I wish the dems were not so close to trial lawyers. Jim, as for the nuclear post read Thomas Freidman today in the NY TIMES, I am not the only one thinking Afghanastan is a black hole. Get out!! what part of 8 years do you not understand. It is Vietnam circa 2009
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