It's less the actual damages as much as it the defensive medicine that occurs because of the constant risk. If you show up with the flu, but it could be some weird disease that shows up in an MRI, the incentive for the doctor is to get you an MRI.
I used to believe in caps, but I think we could do better than that. Create a no-fault insurance market that pays people without the hassle of civil trials. That has the potential to allow medical professionals to be more open and honest about mistakes they make (similar to the aviation industry). That, in turn, would allow for data-driven decisions about how to make the biggest improvements for the lowest dollar amount.
Oh, and while we're at it, how about a self-driving unicorn that runs on rainbows...
100% agreed with this. This is an insightful comment. people have no idea how much practice patterns would change if less defensive medicine could be practiced. So much of the inconvenience of medicine exists because the standard of care is extremely conservative to ensure minimal risk of litigation. The few states that have malpractice caps really doesnt change anything--those states just provide a good practice environment in rare situations, but doesn't change the way that standard medicine is practiced because that is developed out of state as a national consensus.
If MRIs were priced at what most people would call reasonable, then that defensive practice wouldn't be as big of a problem. We've seen prices of $100 to 300 mentioned for some other countries.
I used to believe in caps, but I think we could do better than that. Create a no-fault insurance market that pays people without the hassle of civil trials. That has the potential to allow medical professionals to be more open and honest about mistakes they make (similar to the aviation industry). That, in turn, would allow for data-driven decisions about how to make the biggest improvements for the lowest dollar amount.
Oh, and while we're at it, how about a self-driving unicorn that runs on rainbows...