Tort Reform Is a Red Herring

For years, conservatives blamed out-of-control malpractice litigation for rising health care costs. Today it’s an article of faith on the Right that the nation’s courts are clogged with greedy plaintiffs bringing frivolous cases against doctors in the hopes of getting a jackpot jury award. If only that were stopped, they say, health care costs would drop like a rock.

But the truth is that tort reform is a red herring. We know this, because in the several states that have passed tort reform laws we see no reduction in overall health care costs. But tort is a critical issue not only to people who have suffered malpractice, but also to people whose diseases and injuries were caused by someone else’s negligence. This includes sufferers of mesothelioma, a disease caused by exposure to asbestos. Most asbestos exposure occurs in the workplace or from handling products made with asbestos.

Let’s look at Texas. Texas has put itself through several rounds of reforming tort, beginning with a 1995 law that Gov. George W. Bush considered one of his crowning achievements. The most recent reform, the Medical Malpractice and Tort Reform Act of 2003, has been credited with cutting in half the number of malpractice lawsuits in Texas and reducing the cost of medical malpractice insurance by 30 percent. And that’s good, right?

There are two catches in this story. The first catch, as explained recently by Mitchell Schnurman of the Dallas/Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

“Healthcare spending has grown faster in Texas than the rest of the country. Patients are paying more for health insurance and medical bills. Doctors do more tests and scans, an indication that so-called defensive medicine hasn’t declined here.”

I keep writing about this, but it bears repeating — although doctors complain that they are forced to order unnecessary tests and procedures out of fear of being sued, in the real world cutting the risk of malpractice doesn’t change their test- and procedure-ordering habits. The claim that “defensive medicine” is a significant driver of health care costs appears to be a myth, albeit one that many doctors fervently believe.

And, one more time — clamping down on malpractice lawsuits and capping awards has no impact on overall health care costs. We’ve seen this over and over again, in state after state. Even significantly reducing malpractice costs and physician’s malpractice insurance premiums do not stop health care costs from shooting up. Yet the myth that tort reform is key to lowering health care costs will not die.

— Barbara O’Brien

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 2:27 pm 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.