Mapractice

On Monday, the NYT had a long article on medical malpractice insurance rates (see also the discussion at Blog 702 where there is an extended discussion - you will need to scroll down a little to find it).  The upshot of the article, which reports on several studies of the (potential) causes of rising insurance rates, is that malpractice litigation is not strongly correlated with rate increases.  In other words, litigation is not a major factor in rising rates.  What the studies strongly suggest is that general economic conditions (like the returns insurers obtain for their investments) are much more important to malpractice rates than are malpractice judgments.  It also means that the award caps which are so popular are not likely to do what they are advertised to do -- reduce rates.  What they certainly will do is make the victims of malpractice worse off.  In a particularly populist aspect of this crusade, caps impose the greatest burden on those harmed the most by malpractice.  It is a little disheartening to see that the AMA has joined up on the wrong side of this issue.  But the AMA is also embarked on a crusade to punish plaintiff experts in medical malpractice actions. (I should note that the AMA says it is concerned about the marked undercompensation of malpractice victims and the extraordinary difficulties to be overcome in obtaining meaningful responses to incompetent physicians.  It is just that the AMA does not actually do much of anything about two those issues.)

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[bahopvycacni]

That i didnt know