Capping overblown rhetoric

The Wisconsin State Journal has an article on medial malpractice caps that many people should read before the legislature votes to send a bill to the governor to establish caps in Wisconsin. Conservatives act like if we could just get these caps, all of our health care problems would go away.

They say malpractice caps would keep doctors here and medical costs down by holding down liability insurance costs for doctors, but this story shows there is no real link between having caps and what doctors pay in liability insurance.

The article states:

Yet the link between caps and low liability insurance rates among states is weak, according to data from the American Medical Association and the Medical Liability Monitor, which publishes liability insurance rates and is considered reliable on both sides of the issue.

Nine states and the District of Columbia have the highest liability insurance rates. Six of those states have caps, including Florida, which has the highest rates in the country. (Its cap was passed in 2003, however, too recently to have had much effect.)

Of the 10 states with the lowest rates, five don't have caps. That includes Minnesota, with the second lowest rates.

The issue of how high liability insurance is for doctors is much more complex than whether or not a state has a malpractice cap. The argument trying to link liability rates to a cap is even more suspect in Wisconsin since our state has a Injured Patients and Families Compensation Fund. This fund covers malpractice payments after the first $1 million so doctors in Wisconsin are better protected against really high money awards for patients.

And malpractice lawsuits are a tiny fraction of what drives medical costs. Establishing medical malpractice caps will not even put a tiny dent in the cost of health care for you and your family and any legislator telling you that they are doing this to help your bottom line should be told to go sell their snake oil elsewhere.

But having caps in place may affect your bottom line if you ever have a medical procedure go wrong. Ask yourself if at 25 years of age you were left unable to work because of a mistake a doctor made, would $750,000 be enough for you to live on for the rest of your life? It sounds like a lot of money but if you live to be just 75 years old, that is only $15,000 a year.

It's easy to think that this is something that will never affect you, and hopefully it won't. But if it does, do you think a jury and judge should figure out how much you need so you can be taken care of or should a group of legislators setting some arbitrary amount decide that now?