Jan 11, 2010

Congressional Budget Office’s Report Said Reforms Implemented Nationwide Would Reduce Deficit by Billions

Jeffrey Lowe’s column, “Tort Reform ‘Savings’ Ring Hallow” (Dec. 30, 2009) on tort reform and the federal health care proposal was remarkable — for what it left out.

He failed to mention the report issued only last October by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which concluded that reforms including already-tested limits on malpractice jury awards, a statute of limitations on malpractice claims, and replacing joint-and-several liability with a fair-share rule, if implemented nationwide, could reduce total federal budget deficits by $54 billion over 10 years.

Mr. Lowe must have been aware of the Congressional Budget Office, because he cites the office’s five-year-old report on medical malpractice costs. He raises that report’s estimate of a 2 percent cost saving, which he dismisses as representing “only” $3.6 billion out of $2.3 trillion in total health care spending.

Even allowing for a portion of these legal-related totals going to legitimate compensation for patients, the billions still going into wasteful litigation and defensive medicine would buy, for example, a huge number of vaccines and medicines for our children for many years to come.

John H. Sullivan
President, Civil Justice Assoc. of California