Doctors, Patients at Odds Over Suits
Poughkeepsie Journal
April 1, 2003


A raging debate on New York's high rates for medical malpractice insurance centers largely on these assertions by the medical profession: Runaway juries give excessive awards. Many suits are "frivolous" and reflective of unreasonable patient expectations. And health care costs are being driven up both by malpractice premiums and the unneeded tests and procedures doctors order as a hedge against lawsuits.

Such assertions have led to calls for reform that include a cap on so-called "pain and suffering" awards -- often the bulk of big verdicts -- of $250,000. The proposal, which has passed in the U.S. House of Representatives and is pending in the Senate, would invariably drive down settlements as well.

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Lawyers and consumer groups argue that the current drive to cap malpractice awards is rooted not so much in any rise in malpractice awards as it is in a flat economy, which historically hurts the insurance industry and drives premiums up.

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By some measures, malpractice payments nationally have been flat for years, when medical inflation is considered.

An analysis by Americans for Insurance Reform found that malpractice payments rose at the same rate as health care over the last 30 years, while malpractice premiums shadowed dips and spikes in the economy. The Consumer Federation of America argues that in the last decade malpractice payments inched up by only 1.9 percent on a per-physician, inflation-adjusted basis. Further, it says, the cost of malpractice insurance is small -- 60 cents of every $100 in health-care spending.

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