State Tort Reform vs. Patient Safety
The insurance industry has done an incredible job portraying medical negligence as a potential source of savings to health care costs-what a myth! A close look at the numbers reveals that insurance companies enjoy record profits while physician and patient premiums continue to increase exponentially. The reality of it is that medical negligence lawsuits hardly contribute to America’s insurmountable health care costs. Undisputedly, an analysis of data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and company annual statements shows malpractice insurer profits are 24 percent higher in states with malpractice caps. In these cap states, insurers took in 3.5 times more in premiums than they paid out in 2008. In contrast, insurers in states without caps took in just over twice what they paid in claims.
A closer look at the data clearly indicates that no correlation between the cost of malpractice premiums and health insurance premiums. In fact, with more than 30 states enforcing MICRA’s malpractice caps, insurance companies are enjoying extraordinary high levels of profit while approximately 98,000 patients are killed annually by preventable medical errors. (From To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System Executive Summary - Committee on Quality of Health Care in America, Institute of Medicine). Its time for America to call the insurance companies on their bluff and expose the facade that medical negligence caps as a source of savings to health care costs. Logically, the true source of any potential savings is the underlying principle of reducing preventable medical errors. It follows that preventing medical errors will lower health care costs, reduce doctors’ insurance premiums, all the while protecting the well-being of the patient. So, lets take it back to the basics. If patient safety becomes the overarching goal by focusing on reducing/preventing medical errors, don't all the related problems seem to go away?
