Issue Position: Medical Litigation Reform

Issue Position

Medical litigation reform to reduce healthcare costs. High malpractice premiums resulting from outrageous malpractice claim awards lead to increased healthcare costs that are ultimately passed down to healthcare consumers. Physicians' malpractice premiums began skyrocketing beginning in the 1970s and now are about $15,000/year for non-surgical physicians with OBGYNs and other surgeons often pay FOUR TIMES or more as much. Many improvements have been made recently by encouraging other forms of settling for damages by arbitration and mediation. The largest percentage drop in malpractice premiums has occurred recently in Texas which reformed it's tort law as well. The overhead of the malpractice system as it presently exists in most states is large - with only 28-46% of the money in the malpractice system returned to patients who are injured through negligence. This is poor even compared to the woefully inefficient insurance industry that has administrative costs that run in excess of 20% of premiums for medical expenses.

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