re: #566 Obdicut

Exactly. Moreover, whether or not the medicine was actually being practiced defensively in the first place is unproven.

The only real factor in play in malpractice is bedside manner. That is what will make people sue or not sue. It is not actually the care received. It is how the doctor presents themselves.

I am completely in favor of Gawande’s suggestion around this, which would replace malpractice insurance with a common pool that doctors would pay into that would be used to compensate people for things that went wrong during their procedures. Very, very few people who are injured or hurt due to ‘malpractice’ (even the best doctor makes mistakes, so calling it malpractice is like calling a missed shot by a basketball player malpractice) actually ever sue and get any compensation whatsoever.

The system Gawande proposes would be more fair to doctors, to patients, and would only screw the ambulance-chasers. I’m fine with that.

If you can get providers speaking frankly they will all tell you that defensive medicine is rampant.

But they wouldn’t just stop because a bill passes. They have all seen lots of examples of tort reform passing and then being struck down by the courts. (Happened in Illinois last month.) So there is zero trust that a legislative remedy would be meaningful and lasting. And they have all grown up as doctors ordering the extra tests, and those habits are very hard to unlearn.

So the logical underpinning of the “tort reform will reduce costs” statement is missing.