The Hidden Costs of Medical Malpractice Tort Reform

I recently ran across an interesting article by Joanne Doroshow with the Center for Justice and Democracy. She astutely notes that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report from October 2009 indicating that federal tort reform could reduce health care spending by 0.5 percent or $11 billion a year and the CBO report from March 2011 downgrading those spending “savings” to 0.4% fail to address the costs of additional preventable medical errors.

Ten years ago the Institute of Medicine reported the cost of preventable medical errors at between $17 billion and $29 billion a year. The CBO has noted that federal tort reform would lead to a 0.2 percent increase in the nation’s overall death rate. Accordingly, the cost of medical errors would increase if federal tort reform is enacted. Any decrease in spending on the front end would likely be eroded by additional expenses for Medicare and Medicaid on the back end to treat those severely injured by preventable medical errors.

Here is a link to Joanne Doroshow’s entire article: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-doroshow/tort-reform-_b_853909/