OPINION:
It is encouraging that President Obama and congressional leaders seem serious about reforming our nation’s destructive medical-malpractice liability system (“Health debate could spur malpractice changes,” Web, Metro, March 17). Such action would do wonders to lower health care costs and improve patient access to care.
The threat of a debilitating medical-malpractice lawsuit causes 93 percent of all doctors to order more tests and procedures than are medically necessary, according to a survey. This wasteful practice of “defensive medicine” increases U.S. health care costs by more than $124 billion each year and adds 3.4 million Americans to the rolls of the uninsured.
Any serious effort to fix our health care system must include a substantial dose of meaningful malpractice-liability reform.
Director, business and economic studies
Pacific Research Institute
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