Congress Must Now Address Civil Justice Reform to Impact Health Care

Hans von Spakovsky / January 20, 2011

Democrats profess great concern about the health care issue. Yet they avoided including any form of medical malpractice reform when passing their major health care legislation in 2010. This despite the fact that abusive tort litigation is one of the driving forces in the high cost of health care.

Such litigation greatly increases malpractice-insurance costs, to the point where yearly premiums can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in some medical specialties. This not only raises the cost of health care, it actually drives providers out of business and decreases access to quality health care. Liability risks are also a major factor in the costs of developing and manufacturing new drugs and medical devices.

The direct costs of medical tort claims and medical malpractice insurance does not take into account the even larger cost of “defensive medicine.” An overwhelming majority of doctors admit practicing defensive medicine – ordering tests and treatments that are medically unnecessary but that protect them from litigation. Those costs are upwards of $200 billion a year, according to the Pacific Research Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers. A CBO report requested by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) admitted that medical malpractice reform could save $54 billion for the U.S. government alone. (more…)