alt Hacker NewsSo what's the solution? Some states have already limited malpractice liability but that hasn't done much to hold down costs. When patients are harmed by preventable medical errors they should be compensated.
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When patients are harmed by quacks, it is a true problem and those quacks should be incarcerated and never allowed near medicine again. If there are too many quacks, then this is a systemic problem that needs to be addressed completely separately from malpractice and professional insurance.
When patients are harmed by medical errors caused by non-quacks, that's just tough luck. Not everyone can be saved. Creating a gigantic medical malpractice insurance industry so that a few hundred surviving families per year can have lottery jackpot settlements isn't a solution in any way, and has done very little to incentivize fewer errors.
The solution is NOT to decide on one problem at a time to all agree on solving by incremental compromise, or trust free market competition driving what is in reality a non-free market.
Most patients never file a lawsuit, even if things don't go well, and most injuries that aren't deaths or newsworthy are not worth the trouble to an "overburdened" court system itself imposing a lot of burdens.
And the quality life years lost waiting to share a verdict with attorneys ought to count for everyone affected, not just those who spearhead a trial by catastrophe.
I think the solution is to make the practice of medicine more scientific, and less dominated by competitive incentives, but as long as research and development, reform, or even consumer choice, is strictly a cost, that will be considered "too expensive", if not "too risky".