Originally Posted by
bampilot06
I thought one of the reasons medical cost were so high was to cover the cost of malpractice suits. That’s more what I was referring to.
Well, if you look at the State of Texas which has some of the most stringent laws against malpractice suits (to the extent that very few are filed), the medical costs and insurance costs have not gone down as a result but continue to go up. The Repubs that were pushing malpractice tort reform when Bush was governor sold the idea that malpractice suits drove up the cost of care and insurance without any support for the argument, and we have seen that that was never the case.
A catastrophic, high deductible, plan for my family now costs almost $3,000 per month. Hardly affordable.
As for malpractice suits, Texas (and most states that I know of) has always had a requirement that before a suit could be brought against a doctor or hospital, the plaintiff had to obtain and file a certificate signed by a doctor in the same area of practice that stated that the treating providers against whom the suit was brought did not follow the "standard of care" in providing the care that led to the injury.