What Did Texas Medical Tort Reform Law Actually Do for Texans?

Your personal injury attorney for The Woodlands, TX recommends a look at a detailed and informative report by the consumer advocacy nonprofit organization Public Citizen. Ralph Nader’s Public Citizen organization takes the Texas medical tort reform law to task for its failure to improve the lot of Texans as promised. The report, “A Failed Experiment,” provides data that shows that the Texas medical tort reform legislation actually benefited the medical industry and insurers rather than ordinary Texans.

Those, like the Texas Medical Association, that promote the Texas medical tort reform legislation said that limiting medical malpractice monetary damage awards would lower health care costs and give Texans increased access to better and less expensive health care. Let’s take a look at what hard data says actually happened after the Texas medical tort reform law was passed.

• Medicare spending rose faster than the national average.
• Medical diagnostic testing expenses for ill and injured Texans increased at a rate 25.6 % higher than the national average.
• Private health insurance premiums rose faster than the national average.
• After the tort reform law was passed in 2003, the per capita increase in the number of primary care physicians in Texas decreased from 9.3% to 4.2%.
• After the Texas medical tort reform law was passed, the number of doctors in rural areas decreased by 1%. The number of doctors in rural areas had increased by 23.9% in the 7 years BEFORE the law was passed.
• The percentage of Texans living without health care insurance coverage INCREASED to 24.6% in 2010 from 23.6% in 2003. Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents in the entire nation.
• Texas doctors face far less accountability for their errors than before the tort reform law was passed. Doctors’ medical liability insurance premiums decreased by 50.5% since 2003, and far fewer doctors even subscribe to the coverage since 2003.
• This lack of accountability and the medical liability caps on recovery have translated into a windfall for medical liability insurers. Malpractice payments that insurers must make have fallen at a rate of 64.8% – 74.1%, an even greater rate than doctors’ policy premium amounts. Hence the windfall.
• Most personal injury lawyers won’t accept your medical malpractice cases anymore, because the legislation has left little that your personal injury attorney for The Woodlands can do for you.

The data show that doctors and insurers reaped the benefits of the Texas medical tort reform law, while ordinary Texans suffer even more than before the law was passed from inadequate health care and lack of health care insurance coverage.