An Overlooked Health Care Cost Cutter: State Medical Liability Reform

Conn Carroll / August 10, 2009

In last month’s Washington Post, Common Good chairman Philip Howard wrote:

Health-care reform is bogged down because none of the bills before Congress deals with the staggering waste of the current system, estimated to be $700 billion to $1 trillion annually. The waste flows from a culture of health care in which every incentive is to do more — that’s how doctors make money and that’s how they protect themselves from lawsuits.

Yet the congressional leadership has slammed the door on solutions to the one driver of waste that is relatively easy to fix: the erratic, expensive and time-consuming jury-by-jury malpractice system. Pilot projects could test whether this system should be replaced with expert health courts, but leaders who say they want to cut costs will not even consider them.

Howard is right: Medical malpractice laws in many states, and the defensive medicine practices they encourage, do nothing to improve health care quality and are a driving force behind health care costs. According to the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, “58 percent of tort costs go to pay for administra­tion, claimants’ attorneys’ fees, and defense costs.” (more…)