> The lady said Tort reform would be a good start and she's right, but she went on to lament the fact that over fifty percent of the members are also lawyers so not much would be done in that area.
>
>It's easy for a physician to minimize the chance of blame: order every possibly relevant investigation, stick firmly to the textbook and refuse to perform procedures if there are risks. All that does is reduce patient choice and drive up cost. Malpractice premiums also stay high because it's cheaper/easier to settle for $50K than to go through the courts, meaning that lawyers are incentivized to issue unreasonable claims in the expectation that a few will simply settle. FWIW it's not just the lawyers: awards are made by juries who presumably do not realize that awarding huge payouts drives up costs or even drives physicians out of business or to other states. When you see that obstetricians are reported as paying as much as $250K for only $1M malpractice insurance in some states you can see that something is seriously wrong.


There is a cap on the amounts that may be awarded here in Canada, so there are never any 'well publisized' huge settlements. http://special.pacificresearch.org/pub/hpp/2006/hpp_10-06.html