Medical malpractice and the goals of tort law.

Health and life insurance as an alternative to malpractice tort law

BACKGROUND Tort law has legitimate social purposes of deterrence, punishment and compensation, but medical tort law does none of these well. Tort law could be counterproductive in medicine, encouraging costly defensive practices that harm some patients, restricting access to care in some settings and discouraging innovation. DISCUSSION Patients might be better served by purchasing combined he...

Resuscitating Hospital Enterprise Liability

No tort reform has more potential to improve the quality of medical care and to reduce the frequency of patient injuries than exclusive hospital enterprise liability. Hospital enterprise liability would make hospitals liable for all patient injuries occurring in the hospital that are the product of provider negligence, regardless of the independent contractor status of the providers. In its “ex...

Is there an acceptable answer to rising medical malpractice premiums?

This article explores the key issues involved in the attempts at reform of the present medical malpractice system. Investigating the effects that federal tort reform legislation would have on physicians, patients, lawyers, and the medical malpractice insurers, Dr. Gunnar succinctly outlines the issues surrounding the present "crisis in healthcare" and explores the separate interests involved. T...

Tort law and medical malpractice insurance premiums.

This paper estimated the effects of tort law and insurer investment returns on physician malpractice insurance premiums. Data were collected on tort law from 1991 through 2004, and multivariate regression models, including fixed effects for state and year, were used to estimate the effect of changes in tort law on medical malpractice premiums. The premium consequences of national policy changes...

Debunking medical malpractice myths: unraveling the false premises behind "tort reform".

H.R. 3084: a more rational compensation system for medical malpractice.

The main proposal in the current Congress with respect to medical malpractice is H.R. 30841 (the Moore-Gephardt bill), which was widely discussed when introduced in the 98th Congress as H.R. 5400.2 The bill merits support because it cuts through the Gordian knot of tort reform, motivating medical providers to offer reasonable compensation for negligently injured patients in exchange for patient...