Doctors’ Best Medical Cost-Cutting Ideas: Tort Reform, Tort Reform And Tort Reform. IBD.
Seeing that the Democrats receive massive amounts of campaign donations from the trial lawyers of America, then it is plain to see there is no interest in bringing tort reform into the Democratic-led health care reform. That certainly would put a major cut off valve at the feeding trough. Never mind that the practice of defensive medicine, those extra and unneccessary studies and tests done to protect a doctor from possible litigation are estimated to run as high as “700 billion per year, about 5 per cent of the gross national product, and about 30 per cent of all health care costs.”
Tort Reformed. IBD. Mississippi and Texas have passed tort reform in their states and have witnessed a dramatic fall in lawsuits, decreased cost of malpractice premiums for doctors, attracted more businesses to Mississippi, and increased the numbers of doctors practicing in Texas.
A 2006 Harvard School of Public Health study found that four of every 10 medical malpractice lawsuits filed in America each year were “without merit.” The Pacific Research Institute estimates that tort abuses cost every American family $7,000 per year.
Tiger Joyce, president of the American Tort Reform Association, notes a Massachusetts Medical Society survey published last November that found on average 18% to 28% of tests, procedures, referrals and consultations, and 13% of hospitalizations were ordered to avoid lawsuits.
Litigiousness and defensive medicine, says Joyce, add at least $1.4 billion to annual health care costs in Massachusetts alone, and national estimates range as high as $200 billion.
The accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers says about 10% of the cost of health care services is attributable to medical malpractice lawsuits.
Defensive medicine is not cheap. If health care reform is to be taken seriously, then definitive tort reform should be championed and enacted as well.
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