Why Tort Reform?

29Sep09

Members of the Senate Finance Committee went back to work today on proposed health care legislation, and voted against creation of a government option health plan by a margin of 15-to-8.

What's still on the table? Tort Reform.

America's is a $2.4 trillion dollar Health Care industry. A 2008 report by the New England Health Care Institute estimated that this figure could be reduced significantly, $850 billion dollars, without reducing the quality of care. The largest portion of this is $600 billion in "unexplained" variations of care from hospital to hospital; i.e. doctor's judgment.

Doctors often perform additional tests for fear that if they were to miss something, they could be open to a medical malpractice suit. Neurotic patients may second guess their doctors and request expensive tests or procedures that the doctor might feel are unnecessary. Yet they cannot refuse for fear of being sued. This is the essence of defensive medicine.

We can eliminate defensive medicine and empower doctors to say no to hypochondriacs by limiting civil liability for doctors. In a report by the Perryman Group, it was shown that after instituting tort reform in 2003, the state of Texas experienced a 70% reduction in the numbers of suits filed against state run hospitals. As a result of the savings an additional 430,000 people have been able to get health insurance, and hospitals have increased charitable care by 24%.

Those are exactly the sort of results we need nationwide. Contact your senator and tell them to come home with tort reform, or don't come home.