BTW, malpractice insurance is frequently cited as a driver for our high medical costs. It causes some increases, but by no means all.
Most malpractice suits occur in state courts. States like Texas passed malpractice reforms in the early 2000s, yet their medical costs still match the rest of the nation.
See
https://www.nber.org/aginghealth/2009no3/w15371.htmlThe authors found that tort reforms had minimal effect on premiums of fully-insured plans.
Furthermore, according to
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevecohen/2015/03/02/on-tort-reform-its-time-to-declare-victory-and-withdraw/#176c83d163ea ... A team of five doctors and public health experts found that tort reform measures passed in three states — specifically designed to insulate emergency room doctors from lawsuits — did nothing to reduce the number of expensive tests and procedures those ER doctors prescribed...
. . .
What they found was that doctors in the tort-reform states – who were virtually immune to malpractice suits – prescribed just as many MRIs and CAT scans as doctors in the control states. Removing the risk of getting sued didn’t change doctor behavior.
According to
http://truecostofhealthcare.org/malpractice/ the total yearly outlays for malpractice come to under $10 billion per year. We spend over $3 trillion per year on healthcare, so actual malpractice costs are less than half a percent of medical expenses. This article also discusses "defensive medicine" (AKA ordering a lot of tests) . The doctor there posts his own 2019 malpractice insurance bill:
That’s right, $4,988.02 for the whole year! (It says $5,087.02 because they want a voluntary $99.00 yearly PAC contribution that they add to the the bill.)
The nephrologist who has an office one floor below me pays about $50 a year more than I pay and she runs a dialysis unit.
Also, a pulmonologist I work with pays $6,000- $7,000 a year, an ophthalmologists less than $7,000, emergency room physicians: $11,000-$12,000 a year, anesthesiologists: $12,000-$14,000 a year, surgeons (including orthopedics) $20,000-$22,000 a year and Ob/Gyn about $30,000- $35,000 (obstetrics always has the highest malpractice premiums).
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-health-expenditure
