Abstract
This paper explains that tort reform, putting a cap on jury awards in malpractice suits, is exactly what the insurers want because, in addition to making a handsome profit on their medical malpractice lines as it stands, they would then have to pay out even less. The author points out that reducing consumer health insurance costs would be better served by a systematic effort to weed out bad doctors and prevent malpractice. The paper stresses that, even if there were a link between medical malpractice insurance costs and consumer health insurance costs, the culprit is the insurer itself because it is not allowed, by law, to raise rates in response to big payouts; insurers are allowed to raise rates when their projected investment income declines.

From the Paper
"The suggestive portion of the NAIC findings is this: although malpractice insurance premiums make up such a small portion of health-care costs, medical malpractice as a line of insurance demonstrated the highest profit as a percentage of premiums (Stewart, 21+), making it very lucrative for the insurance companies. Further, losses paid by those insurers in 1991 came to only about 31 cents of every $100 of health care costs; remember, malpractice premiums accounted for 64 cents per $100 spent, leaving 33 cents for the company out of each $100. While the amount spent on malpractice insurance by the consumer, trough his or her medical expenditures, is negligible, there are a lot of people spending $100 frequently, massing up piles of 33 cents for the insurers."

Tags:insurer, premiums, costs, cap, profit

Abstract
This paper explains how medical malpractice occurs, and explains why reform regarding medical malpractice laws is absolutely necessary. The author puts a lot of his own personal observations and views into the paper and explains why people find it hard to file a lawsuit against a doctor simply because they cannot find a lawyer who is willing to take on their case.

From the Paper
''Medical malpractice occurs when there has been professional negligence from a specialist or doctors in general, also including nurses and others whom may work directly or indirectly with the patient. Unfortunately as medicine is a ``practice'', errors naturally occur. However, there is also many times where the errors are caused by the neglect of another. ''Between 44,000 to 98,000 Americans die in hospitals each year due to preventable medical errors; Even using the lower estimate, preventable medical errors in hospitals exceed attributable deaths to such feared threats as motor-vehicle wrecks, breast cancer, and AIDS'' (IOM, 1999). Those statistics are alarming and the key word here is ''preventable''.
Large settlements from medical malpractice lawsuits directly impacts medical malpractice insurance rates. This problem has had much to do with individual states instituting cap laws to protect insurance companies and physicians alike from erroneous lawsuits. Although the intended purpose may be helping avoid such lawsuits, in turn it is creating a major problem in the quality of patient care.''

Tags:insurance, malpractice, patient

Abstract
The paper reveals the high cost of medical malpractice litigation that drives insurance costs and premiums higher and ultimately results in higher costs for consumers. The paper also discusses how malpractice litigation results in physicians offering less healthcare options and less access to medical care for many. The paper therefore argues that a reform of the present system is desirable from the viewpoint of all stakeholders to include medical services providers and physicians, the patients, and the nation's courtrooms that are presently heavily laden with medical malpractice litigation. This paper contains a figure

Outline:
Objective
Introduction
Literature Review
Analysis and Discussion
Conclusion

From the Paper
"Medical malpractice and liability has resulted in a great deluge of lawsuits in the courts of the United States and while it is necessary that these reprises exist for the purpose of ensuring the quality of delivered healthcare services, simultaneously, medical malpractice and liability concerns also result in the hesitation of medical professionals to try new or alternative treatments which might well be more effective and less costly and drives the expanding costs of insurance to cover medical professionals in the event there is some medical malpractice or liability incurred during the course of the medical practice which effectively drives up the cost of medical services for the consumer."

Tags:insurance, premiums, tort, lawsuits, patients

Abstract
The massive United States healthcare system plays an important place in society. Enormous amounts of money spent on health care, fail to a large degree in terms of healthiness or life expectancy. Medical malpractice aggravates this situation due to inflating costs. This paper analyzes how the legal system in the United States is putting pressure on the healthcare system, looks at ways that healthcare delivery has gotten more expensive and potentially more harmful or wary of risk. Tort reform is examined with the potential to help reduce medical costs, but does not seem to be a sufficient long-term goal. Finally, the paper explores the idea of medical courts or tribunals, specialized medical decision makers that could help to increase fair and reasonable judgments for medical malpractice claims.

Paper Outline:
The United States' Legal System is Killing Healthcare
The Impact of the Legal System on Healthcare in the United States
Tort Reform
Medical Courts and Medical Administrative Tribunals
Benefits of Medical Courts and/or Tribunals

From the Paper
"The United States legal system, at both the state and federal level, has never had the direct impact on an industry as it has on the U.S. health care industry. Currently, outside of very lax civil procedure rules, anyone can bring a medical malpractice claim and receive compensation without any factual findings made by a judge or jury. In other words, claimants may receive compensation from defendants without proving their allegations. Parties in medical liability lawsuits can hire so-called experts who routinely testify for the plaintiffs or defendants and skew their testimony towards the side who paid them to testify."

Tags:award, civil, compensation, damages, doctor, health, hospital, jury, lawsuit, medicine, misuse, public, reform, spending, tort, treatment

Abstract
This paper addresses altered tort law which made the right to information of the patient more important than medical standards and required doctors to fully inform patients of risks, including a tiny percentage of risk attached to an essential surgical procedure. The paper discusses other factors that involve definitions of consent and liability in several scenarios involving Australia's climate of litigation till recent shifts instigated by the government's law review. The paper compares Australian tort law to the U.S. and British law and also shows how the litigation/malpractice insurance crisis in Australia has induced reform.

From the Paper
"Adjusted Australian tort law after the later 1990s required that Australian physicians fully inform patients as to the risks of all advised procedure and treatments in an important shift from the concepts of accepted medical practice and professional expertise and opinion to the rights of the patient. (Skene & Smallwood: 2002) An important result has been a crisis of medical indemnity, much litigation from the mid-1990s to 2005 and a resulting hike in malpractice insurance rates that made simply practicing medicine prohibitive. In American and British law, matters of..."

Tags:medico, legal, australia, law of torts

Abstract
President Bush came into the White House with a history as a "tort reformer." True to his record, the President backed a "tort reform" bill that was passed by the House of Representatives but floundered in a Democratic controlled Senate. The President has recently renewed his call for the legislature to approve a tort reform bill that relates mainly to medical malpractice. It remains to be seen whether President Bush is successful in getting his proposals approved this time around as debate still rages among the supporters and opponents of the reform bill. This paper looks at the pros and cons of the issue. The paper includes a summary of the proposed public policy on tort reform, an examination of the impact of the policy (who shall be affected?), as well as the lobbying efforts in favor of and against the tort reforms.

From the Paper
"As for the lowering of health costs and insurance premiums, it is a contentious issue with both the opponents and supporters of the tort reforms holding widely divergent views. While the government contends that such reforms would reduce Federal government costs by at least $28 billion per year and cut health care costs for all Americans by $60 billion or more, the opponents argue that since medical malpractice premiums comprise only 0.59 % of national health care costs such tort reforms would have a very limited effect on health care costs. They also argue that "insurance reforms" rather than "tort reforms" are needed for lowering insurance premiums and quote the example of California where after implementation of medical malpractice reform, malpractice premiums increased 190 %. ("Tort Reform is not a Solution..")"

Tags:Medical, Liability, AMA

Abstract
This paper explains that, whereas other industries afflicted by high premiums have shifted some of this burden to the customer by increasing the fees charged, this is generally not an option for the LTC industry because the great majority of patients in nursing homes have their costs paid by federal Medicare and Medicaid programs. The author points out that the high costs of the litigious climate are causing some states, such as Florida and Texas, to implement damage award caps. The paper stresses that the goal of preventing abuse and increasing the standards of care in long-term facilities is being thwarted by a system that pits lawyers against nursing homes.

From the Paper
"The long-term care homes were the most profitable sector in the late 1980s, Fletcher writes, but are now the least profitable for the insurance industry. Losses are so extreme in the nursing home sector that many carriers are refusing to insure long-term facilities. Fletcher mentions two states, Florida and Texas that are hit particularly hard by insurance carrier losses. At the root of these skyrocketing premiums is the different legal climate that has awarded large settlements to plaintiffs in suits against LTC facilities."

Tags:arbitration, tort, litigious, federal, abuse

From the Paper
"The Clinton Administration has taken on the difficult task of reforming the health care system in the United States, a system that has been beset in recent years by massive cost increases that threaten to lead to the rationing of health care or to some other draconian proposals to institute controls. One reason claimed for higher health care costs is malpractice liability and the accompanying increase in malpractice insurance rates, and thus reform of the health care system has been tied by many to a reform in the rules of litigation to reduce the size of damages that can be awarded for proven malpractice. The limitation of medical malpractice liability settlements is seen as a way of reducing health care costs, with those supporting this idea pointing their fingers at lawyers who take contingency fees and then push for the highest settlement possible in order..."

Abstract
This paper discusses a shift in Australian law towards the rights of the patient as compared to medical standards or the expertise and discretion of the doctor. It focuses on how this shift has created a crisis of insurance and malpractice claims in Australia. The paper presents a hypothetical case study centered on a patient, Rhonda, advised to undergo surgery in order to investigate a possible malignancy situated near the spinal column. The paper then discusses the consent and liability issues that are associated with the case.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Refusal versus Consent
If Consent was Given
The Hospital's Possible Liability
Defences against Rhonda's Possible Claims
Concluding Remarks

From the Paper
"An obvious weakness in the Patient's Rights approach which demands that physicians produce all possible information regarding proposed procedures or treatments towards informed patient consent rests in matters of sheer information, the ability of the patient to interpret it, and with doctors relying on the research community as a kind of de facto alibi it is not meant to be in order to reduce their personal liability. One does see the room for sometimes ludicrous results in cases of routine procedures, not to mention in dealings with patients or their guardians of kinds apt to sue opportunistically. Despite altered tort law hoped to remove the worst effects of the medical indemnity and insurance crises it seems likely that conservatism may prevail, for some years, in Australian medicine. As in the U.S. and elsewhere affected by much litigation, a typical response on the part of doctors is to recommend treatments including surgery sparingly."

Tags:indemnity, litigation, physician

Abstract
This paper discusses the issue of the economic effectiveness of tort law in the common law legal system of England and Wales, as applied to medical and clinical negligence and malpractice cases. It looks at how in response to economic concerns and a continual rise in cases, an examination of the consideration of a proposed no-fault alternative to the current system is underway. It explores the basis of the current system, the impetus for change and the characteristics of no-fault reform as experienced by other countries and its pros and cons. The principal aim of tort reform is to limit the legal or financial exposure of the NHS (National Health System) to liability for damages and to streamline the process of compensation for plaintiffs.

Outline
The United Kingdom
Introduction
Statistics Regarding Claims
The National Health System
Obstacles to Due Process
The Case for Reform
The Regulatory Environment
The Rising Cost of Litigation
Lord Woolf's Reforms
More Cost Controls
The United States
Introduction
The St. Paul's Pullout
The Insurance Industry
Tort Reform In America
Fleeing Physicians
Statistics for Error, Injury and Death
The Call for Reform in 2003: A Familiar Refrain
The United States Situation, in Summary
New Zealand Case Studies
The Swedish Scheme
A Comparison: Which System is Better?
First: Underlying Differences
Talking Tort: American Peculiarities
Americans Consider No-Fault
Britain Considers No-Fault
Conclusion
Works Cited
Appendix A

From the Paper
"When St. Paul's, the largest writer of medical malpractice policies, ceased to offer the coverage in 2001-2002, it was the a consequence of the attention that had been focused on the administration of this type of coverage. A 1989 investigation of St. Paul's and one other insurer initiated by Michael Hatch, then Commerce Commissioner of Minnesota, revealed that over a six-year period premiums had increased 300 percent while claims had not. Hatch was quoted as saying the reason for the increase was: "Because they had the opportunity to do it. There was a limited market. People need coverage. The companies knew they had a corner on it, and they raised their rates accordingly." In response, a group of surgeons from Charleston jointly sued St. Paul for "grossly poor management". St. Paul's consequently dropped that type of coverage as part of its portfolio."

Tags:america, britain, medical, clinical, negligence, malpractice