POINT / COUNTERPOINT While capping the amount of money a victim can receive in a

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POINT / COUNTERPOINT

While capping the amount of money a victim can receive in a medical malpractice case may seem unhelpful, it may actually help medical practitioners and patients alike in the long run. For example, limiting the amount of money a victim can be awarded means limiting the amount of money an insurance company will have to pay to compensate the victim. This, in turn, can lead to lower malpractice insurance premiums for doctors and hospitals, thereby lowering the costs of medical procedures for patients.

Moreover, limiting the loss for which a healthcare professional may be liable could also reduce the amount of “defensive medicine.” Defensive medicine is a practice where a medical professional performs more procedures or orders more tests for a patient than is necessary. While defensive medicine is not necessarily in the best interest of a patient (more procedures means a larger bill), it serves to reduce any liability on the part of the professional and reduce the risk of being sued for malpractice. If professionals have less to lose due to malpractice award caps, they may be less inclined to proceed with defensive medicine practices, which again will lower the end cost to the patient.

Lowering the maximum award a patient can receive from a malpractice case also dampens the incentive for patients to pursue frivolous cases against professionals. Considering a large portion of malpractice awards go to cover legal fees, capping awards could encourage patients with frivolous cases to settle out of court, where most of the settlement won’t be eaten up by court and lawyer expenses. Here is another situation where caps save the medical industry money and can therefore save patients money.

Placing a cap on medical malpractice awards can only spell disaster for patients. First of all, limiting malpractice awards also limits the accountability of medical professionals. A study by the Institute of Medicine found that 98,000 Americans die each year as a result of medical malpractice, which makes it the third leading cause of death in the United States. After Texas capped its malpractice awards, the number of complaints to the Texas State Medical Board more than doubled from 2,942 to 6,000 in one year. Doctors simply have less to lose when malpractice awards are capped, and so they don’t take as many precautions in order to prevent the unnecessary death of a patient. Malpractice caps can only lead to more patient death.

Second, award limits can greatly affect the ability of a patient to successfully pursue a legitimate malpractice case in court. Because lawyers are paid a portion of the malpractice award when they win a case, lower awards simply means less incentive for lawyers to take on malpractice cases. These cases simply may not be profitable for the plaintiff’s lawyers with a cap in place. Because the odds of winning a trial without counsel are quite slim, placing caps on malpractice awards can effectively shut down malpractice cases before they even get started.

Page 215A third and perhaps most obvious reason as to why awards should not be capped is that, frankly, some damages resulting from medical malpractice simply go beyond the $250,000 limit several states now impose. That amount of money would likely cover short-term trauma caused by malpractice, but it might not go very far for someone who, for example, becomes severely disabled due to a faulty operation. Putting a cap on awards suggests that all malpractice cases are the same and all damages can be covered with $250,000, when that just isn’t always the case.

Review the Point/CounterPoint at the end of Chapter 8: Should Medical Malpractice Awards be Capped? Do you agree with the Yes or No position? Why?

Explanation / Answer

I believe that the Medical Malpractice award should not have a cap as , Here, we cannot see human life as a commodity from which the lawyer or he healthcare insitution or any stakeholder can gian from. Whatever or how much ever the damages, In the long run the victim of the damage is the patient. Whike teh patient suffes irreversibe physical loss , the doctor or the health care institution have only money to lose.

Eventhough defensive medicines increse cost (and thus increse the malpractice award too), it is better to practice tis rather than lose sight of abnormalities that could have actually treated with timet intervention. This would also improve the quality of doctors and increase productitivity an dcan hence provide better health care services to more people. The focus on quality work wll automatically improve the quantity or the volume of patients a institute ecieves. This increase in number of patients can offset the efect of money loss due to the malpractice award.

Frivolous cases do affect the reputation of the doctor but its effect is less dampenong than the effect when pateints lose trust in the doctors and hence reduce patient volume. to avoid frivolous cases the healthcare institutions and the governement should come up with regulations and working code and procedures for the doctor. Unifrom codes would not be possible as different pateints require different treatments and hence customisation of such rules need to be implemented to ensure optimum patient recovery and hence better goodwill for the doctor.

Although cap is not needed, I believe that the Medical Malpratice Awards should have a minimum cap rather than a maximum cap as it would be more beneficial and help to maintain a balance between the interests of the doctors as well as the patients. As the above argument says all cases cannot be valued the same and hence need different awards for damages. The process customisation (as talked about in the previous paragraph) will help in customising malpractice awards too.

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