From NationalJournal.com, Oct 13, 2009
by Jason Plautz
Last week, the Congressional Budget Office confirmed what many Republicans have been saying — that controversial tort reform could lead to savings in health care. The CBO issued a report on tort reform in a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, saying that a combination of proposals to reform the medical malpractice system could save as much as $54 billion dollars over the next ten years.
While that news may seem to be a boon to Republicans who have been pushing for malpractice reform, Philip K. Howard warns that it doesn’t mean that Democrats will include meaningful reform in the health care plans or that Republicans would go for it if there was.
“There’s hope [for malpractice reform], but only if outside forces wrestle Congress to the ground on this one,” said Howard, the chairman of Common Good. “The mood doesn’t appear to be very bipartisan at the moment, so I think the greater incentive will be the mobilized force of public opinion demanding it.”
The report was met with cheers from the right. In a statement, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said, “”I am glad that the CBO has confirmed what Texas doctors and patients have learned first-hand — common sense liability reform reduces health care costs, prevents defensive medicine, and increases access to doctors and specialists.”
Cornyn and his fellow Republicans are hopeful that the CBO report will push Democrats to include more tort reform measures in legislation. While President Obama has been amenable to the issue, offering up $25 million for state projects exploring tort reform, other Democrats have been less sympathetic, saying that it doesn’t represent enough savings and may not even curb defensive medicine.
The CBO report does indicate that tort reform could reduce the indirect costs that come from defensive medicine — the tests and procedures that doctors may order to protect themselves from potential lawsuits. But the CBO’s overall savings estimate could be viewed as confirmation for skeptics on the left: Tort reform would cut national health care spending by only .5 percent, with a .2 percent reduction in insurance premiums, according to the report.
Some observers say these estimates don’t go far enough. “It was good they acknowledged that defensive medicine exists,” Howard said. “They’ve come up with a number that’s big enough in the grand scheme of things, but most people think that defensive medicine is on the order of $60 billion per year on the low end, going up to a couple of hundred billion dollars.”
Sarah recommended you read this on October 18, 2009.
