Reporting from the Aspen Institute's Ideas Festival, Kurt Andersen mentions this portion of Bill Clinton's speech:
He said the Democrats are wrong to deny that malpractice suits don't drive up medical costs.
No, they're not. Generally, this sort of high-minded concession to conservative talking points gets ignored, or argued via anecdote. Happily, we don't have to do that anymore. The latest issue of Health Affairs published a study assessing the cost of malpractice premiums, litigation, and payments, in addition to potential expenditures from so-called "defensive medicine". The verdict? This stuff doesn't matter. I'm going to bullet point through the study because, to be honest, this stuff pops up too often for the evidence against it to languish in policy journals.
• Are More Malpractice Claims Filed in the US? Yes. The authors compared domestic suits with those in Canada, Australia and Britain (all countries with a similar, British-based legal system), and it turns out litigious Americans sue 50% more than Britain or Australia, and 350% more than Canada. The uncharitable explanation is our private system makes more mistakes, but let's ignore that for a second. Of our high rate of suits, 2/3rds are dropped, dismissed, or found for the defendant. Only 1/3rd of plaintiffs make anything. In Britain, however, 60% of suits are settled, while only 36% are dropped or found for the defense. So while we have more claims being filed, we have much fewer being won.
