Medical Liability - The Debate

Medical Liability is constantly pushed by the GOP as a reason medical costs have skyrocketed. The cost of liability insurance is very expensive for Doctors and Hospitals. But if you are permanently disfigured or die because of a mistake a doctor or hospital made, what other alternative does the patient have or the patient's family?

I have long thought that doctors don't police themselves enough and hospitals, like the Catholic Church covered for their wayward priests, cover for their doctors.

The New York Times has an OP-ED today written by Tom Baker that delves into medical liability:

Liability = Responsibility

OUR medical liability system needs reform. But anyone who thinks that limiting liability would reduce health care costs is fooling himself. Preventable medical injuries, not patient compensation, are what ring up extra costs for additional treatment. This means taxpayers, employers and everyone else who buys health insurance — all of us — have a big stake in patient safety.

Eighty percent of malpractice claims involve significant disability or death, a 2006 analysis of medical malpractice claims conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health shows, and the amount of compensation patients receive strongly depends on the merits of their claims. Most people injured by medical malpractice do not bring legal claims, earlier studies by the same researchers have found.

On the other hand, medical liability has improved patient safety — by leading hospitals to hire risk managers, for example, and spurring anesthesiologists to improve their safety standards and practices. Even medical societies’ efforts to attack the liability system have helped, by inspiring the research that has documented the surprising extent of preventable injuries in hospitals. That research helped start the patient safety movement.

When it comes to rising medical costs, liability is a symptom, not the disease. Getting rid of liability might save money for hospitals and some high-risk specialists, but it would cost society more by taking away one of the few hard-wired patient safety incentives.

Besides, there’s a better answer for doctors worried about high malpractice insurance premiums.

He goes on to say:

The research shows, overwhelmingly, that the real problem is too much malpractice, not too many malpractice lawsuits.

And:

Evidence-based liability reform would give these institutions the incentive they need to cut back on the most wasteful aspect of American health care: preventable medical injuries.

This medical liability issue is a straw man issue by the GOP. Any excuse to avoid giving the American people good, afordable health care.