GUILTY OF MALPRACTICE

No, not lawyers but the liars who blame lawyers for rising health care costs.


Lawsuits' effect on health cost 'marginal'

REUTERS
7/12/05
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/news/83727.php

WASHINGTON - Higher prices and not lawsuits or other factors have driven up health-care costs in the United States, according to a study published today.

Malpractice awards in the United States amounted to only $16 per capita in 2001, compared with $12 in Britain and $10 in Australia, a team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found.

The same team found in 2002 that Americans pay more for prescription drugs, hospital stays and doctor visits than citizens of other industrialized countries.

"There is a popular misconception that we pay much more for health care in the United States compared to European and other industrialized countries because malpractice claims drive up costs and there are waiting lists in most other countries," said Gerard Anderson, who led the study.

"But what we found is that we pay more for health care for the simple reason that prices for health services are significantly higher in the United States than they are elsewhere," he added in a statement.

"We have less access to most health services, and higher costs associated with malpractice insurance have only a marginal effect on overall health spending."

"Commonwealth Fund-supported research has indicated that the U.S. does not get commensurate value for its health-care dollar," said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis, whose group funded the study.

"Compared with other countries, the U.S. lags on such quality indicators as access to care, including waiting times for physician appointments. In the U.S., inequities persist between higher- and lower-income patients on almost every measure we look at, while other countries are able to assure access to care without creating disparities among patients' according to income."

The study also found no evidence that U.S. citizens spend more for health care because they get more services.