Medical Malpractice Reform Ideas

Pacific Views blog has an interesting follow-up to the Wall Street Journal's recent article concerning aesthenisates and their malpractice rates.

Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly has some more thoughts on President Bush's tort reform plans and the potential impact such plans would have on the cost of health care.  He writes,

MEDICAL CARE IN AMERICA....The United States spends about $6,000 per person on healthcare each year. Could we reduce this figure if we adopted the tort reform laws President Bush is touting? Let's roll the tape:

Malpractice awards in the United States amounted to only $16 per capita in 2001, compared with $12 in Britain and $10 in Australia, [a] team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found.

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