Recently top Republican politicians have cited the medical malpractice “crisis” as a threat to US health care. This includes frivolous lawsuits forcing doctors out of business, and forcing doctors who do continue to practice to engage in defensive medicine – ordering unnecessary tests and treatment to protect themselves from the threats of lawsuits. All of this ends up making health care unaffordable for Americans.

Can it be true? Let’s look at some facts:

According to The Doctors Company, one of the nation’s largest health care provider insurers, doctors are paying less for malpractice insurance than they did in 2001 – and that’s not even adjusting for inflation. They are straight up paying less.

The number of malpractice claims has steadily dropped since 2003, and now there are half as many claims as back then.

And, while some studies suggest that as much as 3% of the nation’s $3.2 trillion in health care spending is related to malpractice cases and so-called “defensive medicine”, research cited in this blog has found that reducing patients’ civil remedies doesn’t save any money or change physician behavior.

However, top Republicans, including President Trump’s pick for Health Secretary Tom Price, want to make malpractice reform a key ingredient of the overall overhaul of the Affordable Care Act. This would include raising the burden of proof for patients claiming to have been injured, and limits on damages awards for those same victims. Dr. Price – an orthopedic surgeon before becoming a representative from Georgia – has suggested that making such changes to patients’ ability to recover in the civil justice system will save “hundreds of billions of dollars”.

Interestingly, Dr. Price and those like him don’t seem to be factoring in the good that civil lawsuits can do, not only for the particular victims of medical malpractice, but also by holding health care providers accountable, which makes us all safer.

As I often tell potential clients who call, I can’t take their case in part because I don’t think a jury comprised of 12 regular people would likely find against the doctor. The civil justice system is built in large part on the notion that citizens in the community invariably decide disagreements such as malpractice cases. Citizens who tend to like and trust doctors, nurses and other health care providers.

If I took frivolous cases – as Dr. Price seems to think attorneys like me do all the time – I’d soon be out of business. Again, it is because the jury system already works as a check, instead of restrictions like damages caps on a jury’s ability to decide for itself what proper compensation should be.

It can be difficult these days to distinguish between “facts” and “alternative facts”. In my view, “We currently have a medical malpractice crisis” is an “alternative fact”.

You can read a comprehensive article on the issue from the Washington Post here:

[Top Republicans say there’s a medical malpractice crisis. Experts say there isn’t.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/12/30/top-republicans-say-theres-a-medical-malpractice-crisis-experts-say-there-isnt/?utm_term=.f08faad425e6)