malpractice not the issue was re myths about national health in article c p hx e acsu buffalo edu v pxgt ubvmsb cc buffalo edu daniel b case writes in article apr news columbia edu gld cunixb cc columbia edu gary l dare writes the difference in the litigation environment is reflected in the fees lack of defensive medicine and near absence of malpractice is really why we spend less using the most expensive approach of pure insurance then why do we really need national health insurance then wouldn t it just make more sense to find some way to cut down on the cost of malpractice insurance it would if malpractice and defensive medicine were the main factors in explaining spiralling us health care costs but they aren t although gary is correct in noting that malpractice related problems are greater in the us than canada they by no means account for the overall difference in health care costs they do account for a somewhat larger portion of the difference in physicians gross income in the two countries some facts malpractice insurance and awards account for less than of total health care costs in the us in according to a survey of physicians conducted by a national medical journal physicians averaged paying of their practice receipts in malpractice insurance malpractice insurance premiums and malpractice awards peaked in they ve declined significantly since then at the same time health care costs have increased more than any period in history as far as defensive medicine is concerned the ama estimates that its total impact is about billion per year that s about of the total current increase in health care costs and the estimate is from a group that could be expected to overestimate the impacts of defensive medicine on health care as small a problem as this is in the overall scheme of things however clinton has been on record for a long time favoring an indemnification of md s against malpractice suits if they follow procedures set by their specialties this would eliminate most if not all frivolous suits while retaining the ability to sue for true malpractice jsh steve hendricks domain steveh thor isc br com one thing about data it sure does cut uucp uunet isc br thor steveh the bulls t r hofferbert ma bell
