Malpractice Malpractice

With news in the last week or so that the Wisconsin GOP is going to try capping malpractice lawsuit awards again, I thought perhaps the many GOP legislators who read my blog (please allow me some of my delusions) would be interested in some notes about medical malpractice I've seen in the last few days.

I'll start with the great news that the "malpractice crisis" seems to be over, if there ever was one (pretty graph included). There's also Ezra Klein's reminder that "average malpractice awards domestically are lower than in Canada, the UK, or Australia [. . .], and the whole malpractice 'industry' amounts to less than one half of one percent of spending." Saving even, say, 25% on malpractice would result in savings somewhere south of 13 cents per every ten thousand dollars spent, and we'd still be spending twice as much for our health care than countries without award caps. An organization the size of the Milwaukee Public Schools--one of the largest employers in the state--would save less than $1000 a year on their health care costs; is this really the way to save money for the taxpayer or health care consumer?

I also found Kate Steadman's Health Policy blog and her series looking at Tom Baker's recent book on the malpractice "myth." That whole page is worth a read, and can educate my GOP friends on all aspects of how their malpractice malpractice will not actually solve any real problems.