[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

From personal experience, I can say that there are frivilous lawsuits.

MedMal lawyers will tell you: about one case in a thousand has enough merit to go to trial, in any shape - physicians still win the "public opinion" battle here. So yeah, while there are some "chop shop" firms, the overwhelming majority of cases are not fueled by attorneys at all. In fact, medical malpractice is likely grossly underreported, because "minor" malpractice has no recourse (trials are brutal, on the doctors, on the families, on hospitals, even on the insurance companies who need to keep a careful balance sheet to pay out all premiums paid in).

You multiply this by every malpractice suit in the nation, and you can't convince me that this does not influence the cost of malpractice insurance which most definitely does increase the cost of health care.

Studies of potential tort reform methods indicate that capping non-economic damages at $250,000 in every state that does not have such restrictions already would reduce medical malpractice premiums by a whopping . . . 8%. The problem obviously isn't verdicts.

The problems with malpractice insurance, as it relates to medical costs, are difficult to pin down - insurance companies claim the problems are "huge awards" that happen rarely in reality (and usually only for deaths/permanent disfigurement/botched births), doctors and insurers blame fear of litigation for "defensive medicine" that drives costs up across the board, attorneys blame doctors, and the consumer really doesn't care because they foot the bill either way.

Malpractice suits definitely have their place. I can think of a number of cases off the top of my head from residency that I could even testify for the patient. The case above had merit and settled for an undisclosed amount. I just wish all lawyers would practice due diligence before filing these cases.

That being said, lawsuits are NOT the problem with health care, but they do drive doctors to practice "cover your ass" medicine which has driven up the cost of health care significantly.

There are a couple of problems with this (not "logical" problems, but endemic issues as medicine and litigation interrelate):

1 - If "defensive medicine" actually does its job and reduces lawsuits (because verdicts and/or sheer number of lawsuits are the problem), then it should pay for itself, and insurers should be all for it, right?

2 - And if defensive medicine doesn't "work" (under our operating definition), then the problem is on the supply side, and not the demand side, right?

3 - Isn't one of the problems with the "system" (as it were) that you're generally discouraged from testifying in these cases you say you could have testified in? Wouldn't that drive the case to settlement/fair-value judgment much faster? Remember, the long, drawn-out process you describe earlier is only partly a product of the plaintiffs' bar (which will generally carpet-bomb with claims, then clean up the mess later once discovery begins) - the insurers, who generally take over the case from the doctor/hospital immediately, have much more to gain from a long, drawn-out process than the plaintiffs do.

I can't say this last part strongly enough: insurance companies who have taken over defense for the doctors have made an amazing mess of costs as well. Whether it is dragging discovery out for six years in a cerebral palsy birth case to get the family to "quit" or accept a favorable settlement (because of pain, needing money, private insurance reaching its cap, etc.); or calling 30 experts to testify about causation, life care exceptions, state aid or just to read an MRI (at an average of $1,000 an hour); or using the same "trial in a box" that has been used for 35 years in court - all of which actually happen in just about every botched-birth case, etc. - the attorneys from the defense side are just as much the problem.