The statistics show that most malpractice suits are meritorious, and malpractice suits account for 2% of the total costs of the medical industry. You can muddy the waters with "unnecessary testing" but then you have to consider both sides of the coin. If bills would come down if doctors did less tests out of fear of malpractice suits, how much would injuries from mistakes go up? The problem is: there is actually a lot of malpractice going on, and that has costs too.
Tort reform is politically attractive, but it's not clear it's solving a real problem. See: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/036480.html, http://archive.sph.harvard.edu/press-releases/2006-releases/..., http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...
The basic issue is that the medical field is unusual in being self-regulated. The malpractice system is really the only way we have to hold doctors accountable, and even within that, we adopt the unique practice of letting doctors themselves adopt the standards to which they are held, rather than using objective standards.[1]
We don't need to handle malpractice via the tort system. But in its absence we'd need something, say an OSHA-like agency that handled administrative complaints against doctors accused of malpractice. There isn't a free lunch here.
[1] Note that e.g. automotive engineers don't get to set the standards for negligence in the context of designing cars!
Tort reform is politically attractive, but it's not clear it's solving a real problem. See: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/036480.html, http://archive.sph.harvard.edu/press-releases/2006-releases/..., http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_exa...
The basic issue is that the medical field is unusual in being self-regulated. The malpractice system is really the only way we have to hold doctors accountable, and even within that, we adopt the unique practice of letting doctors themselves adopt the standards to which they are held, rather than using objective standards.[1]
We don't need to handle malpractice via the tort system. But in its absence we'd need something, say an OSHA-like agency that handled administrative complaints against doctors accused of malpractice. There isn't a free lunch here.
[1] Note that e.g. automotive engineers don't get to set the standards for negligence in the context of designing cars!