Nice summary of the impact of malpractice on health care spending.
Medicynical Note: The costs are tiny (5 billion) when compared to the 2.5 trillion spent on health care in the U.S. but, as noted in the piece by Aaron Carroll, they are very real to the physicians lawyers and patients involved.
But “malpractice reform,” i.e. limiting judgments, will have little to no effect on the total spent on health care. For that we need to look elsewhere…..patent reform, increased efficiency, systematic coverage, better choices, behavior (doctors and patients) modification.
Medicynic 