The Med-Mal Myth in Mississippi

We’ve heard the song before — state enacts tort reform, number of malpractice suits drop, physicians enjoy savings on lower malpractice premiums, state attracts more physicians, state politicians send out press releases proclaiming BIG WIN FOR STATE. Health care crisis solved!

However, the song always leaves out the part where the states’ citizens say they don’t see the difference. Their health care costs continue to go up, and they don’t see any more physicians around than there were previously.

Texas usually claims prime med-mal reform bragging rights, in spite of the fact that since its most recent round of tort reform, health care spending has grown faster in Texas than the rest of the country. But recently Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi took center stage. Since Mississippi passed the Tort Reform Act of 2004, the governor says, medical malpractice lawsuits fell by almost 90 percent. Medical liability insurance costs have dropped, and doctors quit leaving the state.

“In Mississippi, we passed comprehensive tort reform in 2004, partially to stop lawsuit abuse in the area of medical liability. It worked. Medical liability insurance costs are down 42 percent, and doctors have received an average rebate of 20 percent of their annual paid premium,” Barbour told the Jackson Free Press in August.

Health care reform and tort reform are both issues critical to people suffering from asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma. Asbestos exposure nearly always occurs in unsafe workplaces or from handling products made with asbestos. Mesothelioma patients need access to a fair legal system, so they can receive the damages they need to take care of themselves and their families. And of course they need excellent cancer treatment.

For years, rising health care costs have been blamed on out-of-control malpractice lawsuits. However, in a must-read analysis by Adam Lynch in the Jackson Free Press, we learn that the tort reform Gov. Barbour brags about made no difference to the patients of Mississippi.

“‘Are they really trying to say that my medical costs have gone down?’ asked Jackson resident Amanda Starnes, a diabetes victim profiled in a recent Jackson Free Press story. ‘I guess the $10,000 in debt I’ve accrued could have been $10,002, right? Somehow, I don’t see the difference.’”

Although Gov. Barbour doesn’t explicitly say that health care costs in Mississippi have gone down — they haven’t — he strongly implies that the reduction in medical malpractice premiums are a huge benefit to everyone in the state. Reducing medical malpractice insurance premiums is a huge benefit to doctors, and I don’t begrudge them that. But Adam Lynch cites a Congressional Budget Office study that says these savings to providers are not passed on to the health care consumer, the patient.

Further, as Adam Lynch says, a great many studies have found that malpractice litigation costs are less than 2 percent of overall health care spending. This means that even significant reductions in malpractice costs have no noticeable impact on overall health care costs.

What about all those doctors who are no longer fleeing Mississippi? Adam Lynch writes,

“But non-partisan facts show that doctors were never really leaving the state in the first place. A 2003 Government Accountability Office report, “Medical Malpractice: Implications of Rising Premiums on Access to Health Care,” took a hard look at five medical “crisis” states—Mississippi, Nevada, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida—and dismissed reports of doctor emigration from states.”

Further, according to the American Medical Association, the number of physicians in Mississippi rose steadily in the years leading up to the 2004 “reform,” and even slowed its increase following 2004.

Gov. Barbour wants to blame mythical out-of-control malpractice litigation for Mississippi’s health care problem. But after his “reforms,” health care costs in Mississippi continue to rise, and approximately a half million Mississippians have neither health insurance nor access to public health programs. Gov. Barbour might want to take a look at that.

— Barbara O’Brien

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 10:30 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.