• 26
  • October
    2011

A recent report by Public Citizen-a non-profit, consumer rights advocacy group-claims that Medicare spending and insurance premiums for private health care coverage in Texas has risen faster than the national average since the passage of the 2003 tort reform law, which limited damage awards in malpractice suits. Public Citizen also claims that the per capita increase in the number of doctors practicing in Texas has slowed since the passage of the tort reform law.

The latter claims, however, was disputed by the Texas Medical Association and the Texas Alliance for Patient Access. The groups, who supported the tort reform law, also claimed that the bill was not intended to decrease consumer costs of healthcare.

The report looks at the number of direct patient care and primary care doctors in Texas between 1996 and 2010, and takes into account the seven years prior to the tort reform bill, and compares that block of time to the seven years after the law was passed. The findings were that in the seven years before the law's passage, the per capita number of doctors increased by 9.3 percent. In the years following its passage, that number fell to 4.2 percent.

According to Dr. Howard Marcus, who is active in both organizations, prior to the passage of the 2003 law, a significant number of doctors were leaving the state prior to the tort reform and malpractice rates were nearly double what they are now. According to Marcus, the Public Citizen report distorts the data since it tool until about 2007 for the effects of tort reform to set it. He claims that a better examination would have been the years between 2007 and 2011, comparing that to the period before tort reform.

And while Public Citizen's report says that the amount of diagnostic testing has increase since the law's passage-therefore refuting the claims of tort reform supporters, who said the reform would decrease the practice of "defensive medicine"-Marcus and others say that there are multiple factors driving diagnostic testing.

Whether or not tort reform has been effective, there is no doubt that it has changed the climate of health care in Texas.

Source: statesman.com, "Texas tort law failed to cut costs, add many doctors, report says," Mary Ann Roser," October 12, 2011.