Huge Medical Malpractice Study: Damage Limits Not Warranted

Americans for Insurance Reform released a study earlier this week showing that in recent years, doctor premiums and medical malpractice claims have overwhelmingly dropped, while the profits of the medical malpractice insurance industry have soared. Significantly, the study concludes that placing further limits on the liability of negligent doctors and unsafe hospitals would be unjustifiable, and would put almost no dent in our country’s health care costs.
AIR’s report, True Risk: Medical Liability, Malpractice Insurance and Health Care, is by Gillian Cassell-Stiga and Joanne Doroshow of the Center for Justice & Democracy, and actuary J. Robert Hunter, who is Director of Insurance for the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), former Commissioner of Insurance for the State of Texas, and former Federal Insurance Administrator under Presidents Carter and Ford.

In describing the study’s findings, Hunter said, “Thirty years of inflation-adjusted data show that medical malpractice premiums are the lowest they have been in this entire period. This is in no small part due to the fact that claims have fallen like a rock, down 45 percent since 2000. The periodic premium spikes we see in the data are not related to claims but to the economic cycle of insurers and to drops in investment income. Since prices have not declined as much as claims have, medical malpractice insurer profits are higher than the rest of the property casualty industry, which has been remarkably profitable over the last five years. -AIR

The findings apply equally to states that have placed major tort restrictions on victims of medical malpractice and to states that have not.

The study adds that because medical malpractice premiums amount to less than 0.5% of overall health care costs, with medical malpractice claims amounting to 0.2% (yes, these are tiny decimals) of health care costs, limiting liability any more will simply not have a significant effect on these health care costs. “If Congress completely eliminated every single medical malpractice lawsuit,” it says, “including all legitimate cases, as part of health care reform, overall health care costs would hardly change, but the costs of medical error and hospital-induced injury would remain and someone else would have to pay.”

All of this only confirms that removing or further limiting medical liability would mean robbing patients of the only meaningful check and balance they have on the impossible monstrosity of a system that American health care has become. Limiting liability is not a way to save the country money, and it’s not fair for patients who are wrongfully injured or who lose their lives due to negligence.
Read AIR’s full study here.

CAPS ON DAMAGES IN MEDICAL MALPRACTICE CASES HARM PATIENTS AND DO NOT REDUCE PREMIUMS

In 1975, the California Legislature past a law known as MICRA, which among other things limits the compensation (damages) a victim of medical malpractice or their surviving family may obtain to $250,000.00 for non-economic damages for pain and suffering, or in the case of the death of a family member for loss of love and affection. These human damages are the real loss victims and their family members suffer when a doctor is negligent. There are no similar limitations on damages for injuries due to any other type of negligence in California.
Studies have shown that these caps on damages harm victims and do not reduce the premiums doctors pay for medical malpractice insurance. www.weissratings.com/malpractice.asp
The MICRA caps have never been increased for inflation. The $250,000.00 limit in 1975 dollars is now the equivalent of about $61, 383.00 in 2009 dollars.
The tragic consequences of the MICRA limitations are seen first hand in the award winning video, “The Truth about MICRA”. http://www.caoc.com/CA/index.cfm?event=showPage&pg=micravideo
For more information about the unfair MICRA limits and what you can do about them contact California Medical Malpractice Lawyer Steven Weinberg 888-321-1022, or visit his website at www.sjweinberglaw.com.