More than 95,000 Americans are killed annually due in part to medical malpractice, according to extrapolations from the Harvard Medical Practice Study. Hundreds of thousands more are injured. Nevertheless, only a few doctors and hospitals are ever disciplined, and even then most of the sanctions are for substance abuse or fraud rather than negligence. Restricting injured patients' rights will do nothing to rein in runaway health care costs because medical malpractice premiums amount to less than 1 percent of those costs, according to a 1992 U.S. Congressional Budget Office report. The medical industry's inability to contain the malpractice epidemic adds tremendously to the nation's health care bill.
Medical malpractice is all too common in America.
Of all torts, only 7 percent involved any type of professional malpractice, including medical negligence, it reported. Also, an American Medical Association publication stated in 1992 that the malpractice claims rate has dropped at an average annual rate of 8.9 percent since 1985. Wrong drug prescriptions are a major cause of medical injury, according to a July 1995 Journal of the American Medical Association article. Most physicians who are disciplined are sanctioned for transgressions other than negligence, such as substance abuse or fraud. The medical industry clearly has been incapable of policing its own and weeding out dangerous providers.