Personal Injury Law

There is no Proof Tort Reform Reduces Health Costs

By Steven M. Levin and John J. Perconti

There is no evidence that suggests that limiting the rights of individuals to bring medical malpractice lawsuits will either lower the cost of health care or increase its quality. If this were true, Texas would have the cheapest and best health care in the nation. On the contrary, while the provisions of the tort reform legislation passed in Texas have essentially eliminated medical malpractice suits, yet their health care costs continue to rise. The reality is that doctors do not want to participate in the adversarial system of America?s courts. In every medical malpractice case, the verdict depends on another physician?s testimony that the offending doctor caused the patient?s harm by acting below the standard of a reasonable physician in similar circumstances. A great way to reduce health care costs would be to reduce the amount of hospital borne infections. In order to determine what is right for America, the government needs to listen to economists and safety experts instead of doctors or lawyers. To read more about ways to reduce health care costs, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Medical Malpractice Blog on November 27, 2009 (boomark / email).