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Well, some people still think tort reform is a good idea. And some people even think it is a good idea in order to fix our health care system (talk about a red herring). And some people even feel the need to shoot off their mouth about it without being willing to defend it, other than to link to other people who agree with them without bothering to produce any supporting data themselves.

That’s what happened over at Cao’s blog. In drafting a post with which I generally agree, Cao threw out the following with regard to health care reform: “My point was that tort reform should be included, that the free market should be allowed to work, and government should get out of the way.”

So I took umbrage with that sentence (specifically, the first thought), asked for some empirical data to support it, received a link to a website that “generally” agrees with tort reform (not necessarily specific to health care reform), demanded actual and specific data from the blogger and not just random, general links, received a link to a lawsuit filed against Best Buy, cried foul, and was subsequently informed that my comments would no longer be posted.

I mean, who doesn’t post comments? Honestly? Even if he (she?) disagrees with me, who doesn’t post comments?

In any event, I always find it funny when conservatives call for tort reform, because it is a very un-conservative thing if you actually think about it. I find it even funnier that Cao would cite tort reform in the same breath as “free-market” and “government should get out of the way,” despite the fact that tort reform asks the government to substitute its general judgment for that of a specific jury listening to the specific facts of a case. It asks for the government to decide, without being privy to case-by-case analysis, to simply decide that “all” cases of a certain type are worth, at a maximum, “X number” of dollars, thus taking away from the jury - and the market - the ability to determine, on a case-by-case basis, the actual value of your case. Very un-conservative. Very “Big Brother,” too. Funny thing, though. My representative, Bruce Braley, a man I did not vote for and a man with whom I have many disagreements, is anti-tort reform.

Putting the ideological aspects of tort reform aside, the question becomes, fundamentally: Is tort reform needed? In this case, is litigation the reason for skyrocketing medical costs?

The answer is an emphatic, “No.”

Is health care expensive because of malpractice actions?

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.

And:

We have approximately the same number of claims today as in the late 1980s. Think about that. The cost of health care has doubled since then. The number of medical encounters between doctors and patients has gone up — and research shows a more or less constant rate of errors per hospitalizations. That means we have a declining rate of lawsuits relative to numbers of injuries.

Even though studies show that malpractice claims are not bringing up health care costs, what about that red herring that there are “tons of frivolous lawsuits,” as proponents of tort reform like to squeal?

The best data on medical errors come from three major epidemiological studies on medical malpractice in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Each found about one serious injury per 100 hospitalizations…Those same studies looked at the rate of claims and found that only 4 to 7 percent of those injured brought a case. That’s a small percentage. And because the actual number of injuries has gone up since those studies were done — while claims have remained steady — the rate of claims is actually going down.

So very few people actually bring their claims to the attention of the Court, and those claims that are brought account for less than 2% of medical costs.

From the Des Moines Register:

The Congressional Budget Office in December filed a report, based on a study of states that do have caps on damages, that showed little effect of lawsuits on the cost of health care.

“In CBO’s estimation, the effect would be relatively small - less than 0.5 percent of total health care spending,” the report of the nonpartisan agency stated.

The whole idea has been debunked in studies, but also fails even the basic “smell” test. Lawsuits costs a lot of money to bring. You have to pay for experts, depose witnesses, pay for records, travel, etc. Plus, prosecuting the claim requires untold hours - weeks and weeks of time. No attorney is going to take a completely frivolous case and sink tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of man hours in to it. It makes no sense. The principle that makes the market work so well in other respects - the assessment of risk on the part of individuals doing business with each other - is what keeps frivolous lawsuits down. No one is going to take such a risk and lose so much. 99 times out of 100 there must be a definite “case” before a lawyer is going to take it.

Certainly, some lawyers will misjudge the risk and take poor claims, but they are a small percentage. And they are not very good lawyers and they will not be around to make future claims. In any event, good and bad lawsuits, combined, only account for 1-1.5% of medical care costs.

And don’t forget that the only way anyone actually recovers any money is if a jury - people like you and me - find, basically, that A) medical malpractice existed, B) that there was an injury, C) the malpractice caused the injury, and D) compensation is required to make the injured party whole. The jury then decides the appropriate amount. As an aside, it is irrelevant if some attorney asks for $100 million or some other absurd amount. The jury awards what the jury feels is appropriate, irrespective of what is demanded.

And the excessive demand does not make a lawsuit frivolous, either. You can run the red light, hit my car, and injure me. I have a valid claim. If I demand $50 million in compensation, my claim is still very valid, and it is not frivolous. I may lose credibility with the jury, and I may have an impossible time settling the case, but I do not suddenly have a frivolous case because of my exaggerated demand. I simply have an exaggerated demand - or the inability to value a case.

Nor can any of you, or I, determine the the viability of a claim simply by reading a newspaper account of the case, much less a newspaper account of just the demand. But even if you could: how does tort reform reduce frivolous lawsuits? Lawsuits that are truly frivolous collect nothing for the plaintiffs. So why would capping the damages matter? If someone “would have” recovered $500,000, but now only recover $250,000 because of a cap, the case was not frivolous (they recovered either way)! And whether or not there is a maximum or not, a frivolous lawsuit goes nowhere. People only get paid if a jury believes them (i.e. claim was not frivolous) or a defendant assesses the risk and decides there is a real risk of a jury finding against them (again, claim was not frivolous) and, thus, settles the case for less than what they feel they may be forced to pay should a jury make the final decision. Simple negotiation.

And is not the threat of a lawsuit for your actual negligence a fair part of the risk equation for a doctor? We all take risks in our jobs and in our activities everyday. Some jobs carry a higher reward, but also a higher risk. It is all part of the fair, free market equation. That’s why we have insurance. Plus, the number of products and procedures that have been modified or created for the better in response to lawsuits is staggering. Same rationale for medical care.

What about other specific questions people have?

“Doctors have to run excessive tests to protect their well-being - their behinds - and that adds to the costs,” Larry Shover, a Delhi dairy farmer, told Braley in Manchester. “And I really believe we should have tort limits.”

Well that doesn’t even make sense. Doctors need to protect their behind whether they get sued for $250,000, $500,000, or $50 million. The idea that some doctor would run “excessive tests” that he otherwise would not run because he could be sued for $1 million, but would cease to run those same tests if non-economic damages were capped at $250,000, is absurd. Your insurance pays the award either way. Plus, no doctor is going to do unnecessary tests and risk doing someone harm. If they actually harmed people by doing extra tests, that would subject them to the same medical malpractice suits. If they don’t harm people, and are only running necessary tests (because of risk assessment), then what is the harm? Costs?

From that NYT article above:

A 1996 study in Florida found defensive medicine costs could be as high as 5 to 7 percent. But when the same authors went back a few years later, they found that managed care had brought it down to 2.5 to 3.5 percent of the total.

So costs are up 2-3% because doctors are doing tests that do not harm, but, in fact, further help rule out other problems. How many of those “excessive” tests diagnosed a previously un-diagnosed problem?

To be blunt, the data does not support tort reform. Conservative ideology - leaving decisions to the lowest common denominator - does not support tort reform. Hell, the 7th Amendment even recognizes that juries should be making the decisions. It’s a loser. It’s more government. It removes the decision-making from the people who are sitting there hearing the actual, intimate details of your case. It hurts you. And only protects insurance companies. It allows insurance companies to monopolize their profits, but socialize their losses (basically, by forcing you to accept a capped amount, you “eat” the extra compensation you would have received, to the benefit of the insurance companies). But no one is asking the insurance companies to cap their profits, or their ability to collect what would be rightfully theirs to collect. And it wouldn’t even lower costs in the long run!

Unfortunately, we are a country that listens to sound bites and reads headlines, then ignores the substance and adopts the rhetoric. Sarah Palin and George “Increased Non-Domestic Defense Spending Like FDR and LBJ” Bush say it’s good. That’s good enough.

But I’ve digressed. Tort reform is bad.

And Emmanuelle Chrique is so damn hot. Et elle peut parler francaise.

And here is Bruce Braley. Like I said, not my guy, but he is right-on with this one. He repeats some facts, and he adds some new ones.

Update: Thanks to Dr. Douglas for the link. He gets a lot of readers and a good discussion was had over there. I will reproduce the comments, here:

16 comments:

Dave said…

As a libertarian, part of me agrees with Private Pigg, at least ss it pertains to the “free market.”

Problem is, trial lawyers aren’t really a free market operation anymore, as the NTLA is among the largest contributors, if not THE largest, to the DNC.

Besides, jurors today are usually marginally educated, at best (picture Peggy Bundy perched on sofa scarfing Bon Bons while opening her jury summons) and then blissfully awarding millions with little or no regard for the financial carnage left in the wake-much like elderly drivers go about their business, totally oblivious to the wreckage they leave behind.

Tort reform is one of several “musts” that have to happen if we are to plug the holes in the roof our nation’s health care system.

Merely blowing up the building to plug said holes isn’t going to cut it.

-Dave
September 3, 2009 9:24 PM

BeltainAmerica said…

Like Don D I havent gotten into the whole tort reform much because I do not fully understand it.

I will say though that lawyers do get paid if they don’t think they will get a percentage of the take.

All I can really say is that I have known a number of doctors and they all say the same thing about how costs are so high because of law suits yadda yadda.

Yet these same doctors always have the largest houses with a vacation house or two and a fleet of cars all while working 4 days a week.

So although I am against government run health care I just don’t really buy into Tort reform as an alternative either. Its been a dummy straw man argument for too long.
September 3, 2009 9:46 PM

Grizzly Mama said…

Malpractice insurance is forcing many doctors to alter the way they practice. My favorite pediatrician had to become part of a very large group of peds because his malpractice insurance premium was so high.

Not only that, but doctors are more inclined to put you through sometimes excessive and unnecessary testing to cover their ass for fear of a lawsuit. I, personally, was subjected to this behavior when one of my docs felt that I should be admitted to the hospital and put under general anesthesia for a procedure that could be done (and in fact I have HAD done) in the doctors office in the past.

I don’t think that tort reform is a horrible thing, and there are many parts to it. Limits on damages, limits on contingency fees, loser pays. I’m sure that there are objections to all of it from one side or another.

I know a guy who seems to sue people for a living - he doesn’t work, he lives off of his awards. And the awards are basically automatic because the insurance co’s just pay out hoping to avoid the time and expense of a court appearance.

The discussion of this issue is a good thing. We need to toss these ideas around.
September 3, 2009 10:41 PM

Donald Douglas said…

Guys, I’m mostly digging how Cao totally lost it. That said, Private Pigg’s an attorney, and I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt …
September 3, 2009 10:44 PM

PrivatePigg said…

Dr. D: Thanks for the post! I appreciate it. But don’t take my word for it - it makes perfect sense!

Dave: “jurors today are usually marginally educated.”

I suppose that can be true. It depends on the jurisdiction. But what does that matter? These jurors are voters, also marginally educated. In any event, tort reform is asking the government to decide before-hand what a case’s maximum value is. The “uneducated juror” sits and actually listens to the case - and not just the plaintiff, mind you. A qualified defense attorney, well-paid by the insurance company, has the same opportunity to convince the jury that the case is frivolous, or that no real injury occurred, or, the best defense, that the doctor was reasonable and followed the standard of care, etc. It’s like we pretend that juries are just being subjected to plaintiff lawyers’ propaganda, and then some runaway judge interprets all the law in favor of the plaintiff, and then the jury, with nothing to do but sit and scratch their uneducated ass, gets off on awarding $1 billion. It doesn’t work that way.

Besides, excessive verdicts are actually appealable: the appellate courts can overturn a verdict (and remand for a new trial) that is clearly not in line with the facts of the cases. Thus, for any verdict to come into existence, and stand, a jury of your peers must hear both sides of the case, must follow the law, must find that the doctor did not act reasonably and did not follow the prevailing standard of care (which can only be proven by ANOTHER doctor taking the stand and telling the jury that the defendant doctor did not do what a normal doctor would do in his shoes), must give a reasonable verdict that is in line with the specific facts of the case, and said verdict must withstand an appeal (or multiple appeals).

And practically speaking, it makes no free market sense to ask legislators to cap all damages. It makes much more sense to let the unwashed masses make the decision after they have heard the specifics of the case. Are you a libertarian or not?

Besides, the studies show that costs related to litigation are marginal, at best.

I challenge anyone to cite me a reckless, frivolous case that has increased the costs of your medical care. Even if you find one… it’s just one.

But Dave, you seem to be implying that maybe professional juries would suit your taste more? Maybe. It would be preferable to a government-mandated cap, that’s for sure.

I’m not sure why trial lawyers donating to the DNC makes them no longer free market. With Republicans talking about tort reform, is it any wonder?

Beltain America - “I will say though that lawyers do get paid if they don’t think they will get a percentage of the take.”

I’m not sure I understand. Did you mean “don’t” get paid? Just in case: Personal injury cases - the ones with multi-million dollar verdicts - are done on a contingency basis. No plaintiff agrees to be liable to his attorney for $200,000 in costs if they lose the case. The attorney takes the case and only gets paid if he wins (some “costs” are obviously reimbursed - filing fees, etc.). Thus, the majority of “frivolous” claims never see the light of day, as most attorneys won’t take the risk attendant in advancing such large amounts of costs when the case is a stinker.
September 4, 2009 6:07 AM

Rich Casebolt said…

From what I see, the present tort system leverages class envy within its juries to produce inequitable outcomes, that have little or no relationship to how negligent or unscrupulous a defendant has been … but exhibit a significant relationship to defendant pocket depth.

That certainly has a chilling effect upon the economic pursuit of happiness that extends beyond the direct costs … and that hurts us all, when it is not justified by the need.

In the health care field, it leads to doctors moving away from OB/GYN and other fields where the risk of even an unavoidable negative outcome is high, especially when the insurance costs climb … and it leads to wasteful “defensive medicine”.

General aviation, OTOH, was revitalized from a near-death state in the late 1990’s in part because of the liability limits instituted by the 1994 General Aviation Revitalization Act.
September 4, 2009 7:16 AM

Dennis said…

In a conversation with my doctor, who I really like and hope to keep, he stated that at least 60 percent of all test are unnecessary and meant to protect themselves from law suits. Most doctors not unlike most lawyers desire to do a good job for their patients/clients.
Lets face facts here, Doctors are working in a field that has far too many variables when it comes to each individual’s diagnosis and treatment. Doctors are usually well trained individuals who have to make a series of guesses, because of individual variability to certain treatments and drugs, as to a treatment that fits each patients. It would be nice if we were all alike in our mental and physiological make up, but that is not what actually faces doctors.
I suspect that you can find any set of doctors as in any other field, who disagree with another doctor’s approach. I used to love watching professors in various disciplines go at each other. It really got quite nasty.
It is too bad we cannot use the same process to weed out bad lawyers to the point that they carry malpractice insurance. The legal system is filled with people and governments who were poorly served by their attorneys. If we have a profession where we cannot find out what the definition of “is” is then maybe we have one that is not serving its designed purpose. Does anyone believe that a lawyer can write any legal brief that cannot be ripped apart by any other lawyer?
I would also posit that it has been a long time since we were judged by our peers. Especially since we have jurors being selected by groups who specialize in that selection. I am not sure that “Due Process” has not turned into the money due to the process. NOTE: I did not say justice because the legal profession does not promise that.
It would be interesting to see lawyers judged by the same standards that they apply to every other profession. I am not sure they would like it very well nor do I believe they could stand the scrutiny.
What we need is a system that removed bad doctors as well as bad lawyers for that matter and does not add to the costs that everyone else has to pay in that system. The one we currently have rewards one group, no matter how poorly they perform their function, at the expense of the other.
September 4, 2009 8:08 AM

Norm said…

Obviously, no one here as been in the
Bronx Supreme Court where everyone walks out a millionaire.
September 4, 2009 9:02 AM

Stogie said…

The enormous cost of malpractice insurance does indeed raise medical costs across the board and results in “defensive medicine,” giving treatments and medications not for medical reasons, but for court reasons.

Screw the legal profession. Without tort reform any health care reform is meaningless. Lawyers literally have a license to steal, and Private Pigg — you’re full of it.
September 4, 2009 11:27 AM

PrivatePigg said…

“but exhibit a significant relationship to defendant pocket depth.”

Except that a jury is not allowed to know the insurance, the type of insurance, or the policy limits of said insurance.

Further, when we are talking about punishing a bad actor for intentional conduct (which is the basis for the really huge awards), of course the pocket book of the offender becomes somewhat relevant. Does it punish me to get hit for $100,000? You better believe it. Does McDonalds care about $100,000? No. It is more expensive to alter their practices throughout their thousands and thousands of stores around the world than to simply continue to act bad and simply get hit with a lawsuit every once in awhile - until the lawsuit is $10 million. Then McDonalds will change its procedures that are harming people.

“at least 60 percent of all test are unnecessary and meant to protect themselves from law suits”

Your doctor can tell you what he wants, but the empirical data doesn’t back it up. And the standard is negligence. Doing unnecessary tests will not protect you from being negligent. If you failed to find something, but the ordinary doctors in your area would have found it, you are negligent. It’s not just “hey you should have done more tests,” it’s “hey, the other doctors in your area would have caught the problem because they all do A or B and you failed to do it.” You are compared to your peers, not to some layperson. So if all the other doctors are doing certain tests, you better do them, too, because that is what defines the proper standard of care in your area.

Stogie - The empirical data does not back up your claims. Why is it that I can cite studies that show the opposite of what you say, but you can retort with “you are full of it” and just proclaim that the studies cited are wrong - simply because you say so.

If anyone has actually been in the courtroom during a med mal case, and heard the evidence, you quickly realize that the only time a doctor is found negligent is when he did something outside of the standard of care - the standard of care that is determined by the other doctors in his geographical region. The jury can’t decide for themselves that the doctor fucked up. The same standard is held for lawyers (who hold malpractice insurance) and any other professional who provides services. But when all professionals are held to the standard of care evidenced in their area, the only ones who have their costs being increased are doctors? What about lawyers? What about any other service industry that is ripe to be sued for negligence?

You get ripped off in your health care because the majority of doctors over-charge. Ever noticed an insurance company that pays your medical bills often will only pay the doctor 50% of what the doctor has billed? Same with Medicare. Why would a doctor accept a 50% cut in his bills? Would you accept a 50% wage cut and keep working - only if the 50% wage cut was the actual value of your services. You get over-charged. Look at a bill. Be at the doctor for one hour and wonder why your bill is $1000. Your attorney bill would be $150 for the same period.

Tort reform is a red herring. And I’ve cited the studies on my post. If you care to disagree with them, please cite me some empirical data that backs your claim.
September 4, 2009 1:40 PM

The Vegas Art Guy said…

Private Prigg, if tort reform is not a good idea, then why are the malpractice rates so high? It is really a zero sum gain or is there some middle ground that can be reached. I’d like to think that we all agree that blowing up the medical system is not the way to go about it but I’m an English teacher not a lawyer so this is out of my depth.
September 4, 2009 4:10 PM

PrivatePigg said…

“then why are the malpractice rates so high”

Because of the potential. Ever looked at the malpractice rates for attorneys?

Ever wondered why young drivers have higher insurance than middle-aged drivers? Why people who have dangerous jobs have higher insurance premiums than those in safe occupations?

It is nothing but risk assessment. Doctors can, potentially, cause people irreparable harm, and even death. So their rates are higher than other professions.

“As many as 98,000 people die every year because of medical errors.” How many dies because of their lawyers, or engineers, or dentists? It’s a high-risk, high-reward business.

And only a fraction of the people that are hurt ever bring a claim, too.
September 4, 2009 4:28 PM

Dennis said…

Some contrary information and studies:

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Impact-of-High-Legal-Costs-on-Healthcare&id=384297

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/tort-reform-aids-health-lowers-cost-why-isnt-it-in-obamacare/

http://www.triallawyersinc.com/healthcare/hc01.html

I would bet that if I dug deep enough I could find a number of studies and articles that would vary from the couple, basically written by lawyers, of studies that you seem to be citing.
It is far more complex than most people think.
September 4, 2009 4:34 PM

The Vegas Art Guy said…

You only answered half my question.
September 4, 2009 7:12 PM

PrivatePigg said…

The first link gives mostly opinion, cites a dollar amount spent ($10 billion - which, by the way, is actually a third of what I cited), but does not mention a single study that shows that legal fees actually increase costs. $10 billion in costs, by the way, works out to 0.005% of total health care costs. Whoa.

The second link cites a PriceWaterhouse study for the fact that “10% of the cost” in health care is from malpractice suits. A deeper look, however, shows that the actual study says that 10% of costs are due to defensive medicine, which is “sometimes” practiced because of liability concerns, but also because doctors get paid more for extra tests, and because some doctors believe that more tests are actually better (the study does not differentiate between the three in terms of which is more likely to be the reason - they are all cited equally). So the actual study cites three things that cause doctors to practice defensive medicine, one of those things being liability concerns, with that three-pronged total being 10%. Not surprisingly, studies that attempt to just show the costs for defensive medicine due to liability concerns have the cost at 1/10 to 1/7 of that (including the study you cited in the first link). The study also cites “processing claims forms” as just a big of a waste of money as all of the three reasons for the defensive medicine, combined.

The third link again states the medical liability was responsible for “10%” of the tort tax. The footnotes, however, reveal the actual medical malpractice cost to be $27 billion, which is 0.0135% of the total cost of health care in the US.
September 4, 2009 7:40 PM

PrivatePigg said…

Vegas - Maybe there is some middle ground, but if it involves bureaucrats deciding some blanket maximum for cases without letting local juries hear the cases and make the determination based on the specifics of the case, then I’m against it.

It makes no more sense than letting the government decide other aspects of our life, or other aspects of the market.
September 4, 2009 7:47 PM

Update 2: Sadly, the “conservative” blogosphere is mostly on the wrong side of this one. I mean, it makes no libertarian or conservative sense to ask the government to substitute its judgment for that of the people hearing the actual merits of the case. Thus, on ideological grounds alone, conservatives should oppose it. But, I recognize that practical grounds can, and should, sometimes overcome rigid ideology. But what are the practicalities here? The evidence just does not show that litigation has anything but a marginal affect on health care costs.

From the right-o-sphere: Hot Air, Charles Krauthammer (via LGF).

Update #3 - Thanks to Common Sense Political Thought for the link!

Here is what I added in the comments over there:

#

Certainly, there are costs. No one would say that there are no costs. But over-hauling the entire tort system that allows people to bring their grievances before a jury of their peers - to save 2-3% (despite the fact that studies show that states with caps don’t actually have lower health care costs), makes no sense to me.

John Edwards cannot simply bullshit to a jury and get some money. He is not qualified as a medical expert. The law requires that to find a doctor liable for negligence, said doctor must have breached the “standard of care” in his geographical area (malpractice against any professional is always held to the “standard of care” of similar professionals in their geographical location). The only person who can testify to the standard of care for doctors in an area are other doctors in that area. They must qualify as experts with their credentials, etc. Thus, every jury that awarded Edwards money heard a doctor opine that the defendant doctor breached the standard of care (and, certainly, the defendant doctor had other doctors testify on his behalf, too (the jury simply believed Edward’s experts)). Doctors must then establish that the harm suffered by the victim, or plaintiff, is the type of harm that would proximately result from the breached standard of care.

It is terribly difficult to prevail against a doctor in a medical malpractice suit, which is why studies estimate that less than 10% of all hospital negligence actually results in a lawsuit. Doctors recognize how difficult their profession is, and are loath to simply be “hired guns” to trash other members of their profession. Of course, you can inquire into the relationship of the expert to the plaintiff’s attorney, too, so if he’s done the “hired gun” thing 100 times in his career, the jury will know. And they will know how much he’s been paid, too. All goes to credibility.

Dana - Your quotes from my post, above, are the tertiary arguments against tort reform. The statistics and studies are the important things. The quoted language, above, is simply ‘additional’ info. that has not been studied and has not been reduced to empirical data. Those points were sort of asides to sort of say, “the data and studies speak for themselves, but what about these common sense concerns…”

I appreciate the link!
5 September 2009, 10:50 am
#
PrivatePigg:

Re: John Edwards - the point was that John Edwards is not smooth-talking a jury with junk science. A doctor is actually testifying to whatever ’science’ is being used. So if we have now discovered that Edwards won cases for problems that we have now discovered were not actually caused by the doctors that were sued, the blame can be laid at the feat of the medical profession, at least half of which obviously bought into the bad science, too (because one doctor cannot simply say something - what the doctor testifies to must be accepted in the profession (and this is proven by peer-reviewed articles, etc.)).

So if John Edwards convinced a jury that a vaginal birth caused CP, he had a doctor that said it did, and the doctor’s opinion was qualified as “expert testimony” by peer-reviewed articles and the like that show his opinion is not some wild anomaly.

Stone Soup Musings:

“…in 2004 the Congressional Budget Office pegged the costs of malpractice lawsuits at less than 2 percent. They also noted that “even a reduction of 25 percent to 30 percent in malpractice costs would lower health care costs by only about 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent, and the likely effect on health insurance premiums would be comparably small…The great majority of patients who sustain a medical injury as a result of negligence do not sue.” Indeed, the New York Times reports, although “recent studies have found that one of every 100 hospital patients suffers negligent treatment, and that as many as 98,000 die each year as a result . . . only a small fraction of injured patients — perhaps 2 percent—press legal claims…And it appears that doctors are paying high malpractice insurance rates in part because of a few bad apples: “Just 1.1 percent of all doctors accounted for 30 percent of all malpractice payments made between 1990 and 2002, while only 5.2 percent of doctors were responsible for 55 percent of all payouts.” A very small group of doctors are losing or settling malpractice lawsuits, but they are losing big. “Eighty percent of claims involved injuries that caused significant or major disability (39 percent and 15 percent, respectively) or death (26 percent).”

Conservative or liberal, ideology aside, the facts just don’t support tort reform. Your health care is expensive because, despite the high quality, it is inefficient. You wait for an hour, you barely see your doctor, and you get charged $500 per hour.

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