RT Journal
A1 Bernstein, Joseph
A1 MacCourt, Duncan
A1 Abramson, Bruce D.
T1 Topics in Medical Economics: Medical Malpractice
JF The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery
JO The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery
YR 2008
FD August 1
VO 90
IS 8
SP 1777
OP 1782
DO 10.2106/JBJS.G.00951
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.2106/JBJS.G.00951
AB 
Our system of addressing medical malpractice is broken. We can say that the system is broken not so much because insurance premiums are high or because physicians are demoralized—though these features certainly are not assets either—but because the system fails to accomplish the very things for which it was built: to deter errors before they occur and to compensate the victims of errors that take place nonetheless. In today's broken system, some patients who are injured by malpractice are not compensated, whereas some of those who do receive payment have not truly suffered medical negligence. Because of this imprecision, verdicts lose their power to rebuke and deter. Compounding this is a third problem: the costs of litigation and the defensive medicine that it promotes exact a high price on an already overtaxed health spending budget.