Medical malpractice litigation raises health-care cost, reduces access, and lowers quality of care.
This article examines the impact of medical malpractice litigation on health-care cost, the availability of employer-sponsored health insurance, and the quality of health-care services. Among the findings are that unlimited, uncapped medical malpractice litigation added as much as 97.5 billion dollars annually to the cost of hospital and physician services; increased the annual cost of employer-provided health insurance by as much as 12.7 percent; decreased by 2.7 million the number of workers and their families covered by employer-provided health insurance; caused a 6 percent decline in physicians in the U.S., many of whom work in critical specialty areas; lost access to critical medical services for up to 14.4 million people; resulted in malpractice underwriting losses of 8.6 billion dollars in 2001, double that of 10 years earlier; and had a low predictive value in identifying whether medical malpractice had occurred.
D035881:Compensation and Redress / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D005249:Fees and Charges / Q000639:trends; D017048:Health Care Costs; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007351:Insurance, Liability / Q000191:economics; D016365:Liability, Legal / Q000191:economics*; D008318:Malpractice / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D010820:Physicians / Q000191:economics / Q000600:supply & distribution; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D014481:United States