Personal Injury Law

Texas Tort Reform: A Good National Model?

By Beth Janicek

In 2003, the Texas Legislature passed medical liability reforms that capped non-economic damages for injured patients at $250,000, and brought the number of malpractice lawsuits down dramatically.

The conservative position on health care reform is that medical malpractice claims drive up health care costs and require doctors to practice 'defensive medicine' which is costly and wasteful. They believe that medical malpractice lawsuits are a leading cause of rising health care costs. However, health economists and independent legal experts believe that malpractice liability costs are only a small fraction of the costs of the U.S. heath care system, and that medical errors are a huge cost to both the injured patients and the health care system as a whole.

Governor Rick Perry boasted that tort reform that capped injured patients damages was the answer to Texas' problems. Contrary to his claim, McAllen, Texas is one of the most expensive health care markets in the country, with Medicare spending almost twice the national average per person. Harlingen and Corpus Christi also made the top ten list of expensive cities in the country to receive healthcare.

Caps do not prevent the numerous preventable medical malpractice injuries that occur in America. The caps on medical malpractice damages only limit that who are most seriously hurt by medical errors and does nothing to prevent 'frivolous lawsuits'. Limiting damages did not reduce the medical costs in Texas and it won't limit the costs on a national level either.

Full post as published by San Antonio Personal Injury Lawyer on November 16, 2009 (boomark / email).