The Crisis Has No Clothes

Kevin Drum posts about yet another study showing malpractice lawsuits are not a problem anything close to what tort reform backers claim:

...malpractice payouts have grown at about the same rate as medical costs in general. In 1992, malpractice payouts amounted to about 0.3% of total healthcare spending and 1.2% of physician and clinical spending. In 2002, the numbers were....0.3% and 1.2%.

[snip]

The basic numbers are pretty simple: the number of total judgments per physician has gone gradually down, while the total value of payouts has gone gradually up. However, the increase has been small, and matches the overall growth in medical costs.

You can argue about whether malpractice costs should grow at the same rate as overall medical costs or not, but it's a tiny argument, not an excuse for crisis mongering. In fact, what's most striking about the numbers is that growth in payouts has been steady and slow. There haven't been any spikes, and certainly no excuses for sudden 100% increases in insurance premiums.

Analysts on all sides of this debate agree that reform of the malpractice process would be a good idea. But for the most part, the skyrocketing premiums we've seen over the past couple of years are the result of insurance company incompetence and greed, not actual increases in malpractice payouts.

Can we now get past the notion this is a crisis in need of legislation?