Defensive medicine is when providers prescribed unnecessary medicines and services to avoid liability rather than for the benefit of the patient. According to the study, the Congressional Budget Office then estimated that implementing tort reform would reduce total health care spending by about $11 billion and would reduce federal budget deficits by as much as $54 billion (Congressional documents and Publications, 2013). In addition, using a dataset of health plans representing over 10 million Americans annually between 1998 and 2006, the study found that the most common set of tort reforms during this period reduces premiums of employer-sponsored self-insured health plans by 2.1% (Avraham & Schanzenbach0. However, many argued that Tort reform did not cut health care cost. In article titled “Tort reform' didn't cut health care costs in Texas, study finds”, states that health care spending has increased annually everywhere, including in the states with caps on malpractice payouts and that Medicare payments to doctors in Texas rose 1 to 2 percent faster than the rest of the country (Roser,
Defensive medicine is when providers prescribed unnecessary medicines and services to avoid liability rather than for the benefit of the patient. According to the study, the Congressional Budget Office then estimated that implementing tort reform would reduce total health care spending by about $11 billion and would reduce federal budget deficits by as much as $54 billion (Congressional documents and Publications, 2013). In addition, using a dataset of health plans representing over 10 million Americans annually between 1998 and 2006, the study found that the most common set of tort reforms during this period reduces premiums of employer-sponsored self-insured health plans by 2.1% (Avraham & Schanzenbach0. However, many argued that Tort reform did not cut health care cost. In article titled “Tort reform' didn't cut health care costs in Texas, study finds”, states that health care spending has increased annually everywhere, including in the states with caps on malpractice payouts and that Medicare payments to doctors in Texas rose 1 to 2 percent faster than the rest of the country (Roser,