Trial lawyers specializing in personal injury and civil litigation
Medical Malpractice caps and health insurance reform
In case you were wondering, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office released a report last year concluding that federal adoption of medical malpractice caps (such as the caps in Michigan) would contribute to a savings on health insurance of less than one-half of one percent. Pretty nominal under the circumstances. It also concluded that in those states like Michigan where caps have been adopted already (in our state for well over a decade) there is NO EVIDENCE that they reduce the practice of "defensive medicine," i.e., the practice of performing unnecessary procedures or tests, solely to reduce the risk of a lawsuit. I'm betting that most doctors are honest enough, and compassionate enough, to order those procedures that a patient needs, because the patient needs them. Michigan lawyers, already subject to "caps," have no dog in this fight, and I'll bet the argument of defensive medicine as an excuse to institute caps is grossly over-blown.