Malpractice certainly is an important issue. A malpractice tort system is necessary, not only to compensate victims, but to maintain some sort of financial deterrent to the incidence of malpractice. Regardless of who wins, the average time between injury and resolution of the claim is five years. During this waiting period, the victim is without economic support.
A recent survey of doctors published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 93 percent of physicians admit to practicing defensive medicine. Beside the waist in cost, defensive medicine wastes patients' and doctors' time.
The 800,000 physicians in active practice in the U.S. pay, on average, premiums of $27,500 per year for malpractice coverage [1]. This amounts to $19.25 billion per year.
The cost of medically unnecessary, but legally warranted, defensive medicine takes up to 20% to 25% [2]. of the total national health care spending. Based on the 25% figure $550 billion is squandered annually in defensive medicine decisions. Because of defensive medicine, doctor’s productivity is negatively impacted. Much of the physician’s and nurse’s time is spent entering voluminous notes into the chart, which have zero or little practical relevance to the patient’s care. Administrative costs for U.S. physicians are nearly 27% of gross income.
Unless trial lawyers are removed from the equation, there will never be any significant reduction in health-care costs.
[1] “Accounting for the Cost of Health Care in the United States.” McKinsey Global Institute. January 2007. Link:
McKinsey & Company - Synthesis - Accounting for the cost of health care in the United States - January 2007
[2] “The Elusive Prescription for Health Care We Can Afford.” Wall Street Journal. Feb 4, 2008. Link:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120209669119840029.html