| Limiting medical malpractice lawsuits Incremental lawsuit award caps would be a start towards dropping cost of healthcare without a quality drop. The reason for this is that when there is no cap like in Illinois the cost of malpractice insurance skyrockets. In Illinois it is around $200,000 per year, next door in it's Indiana $20,000 per year. This money doesn't come from nowhere, and doctors can't always afford to pay for it so they have to join a big hospital that pays for it. So the price of healthcare is passed on to the consumer. In Illinois this is an extra $180,000 per doctor spread out amongst the patients. Male gynecologists, and brain surgeons are becoming very scarce in Illinois!
The best solution would be incremental caps though. For instance there would be a set limit for losing your hand and you could even set a list of things that would decrease this limit for any particular person. If the hand was already badly damaged to the point that any recovery was unlikely for example when they went into the hospital for example they maximum amount would be again cut.
You could also limit the amount a person could sue for in risky but necessary operations. For example someone with a brain injury who needs difficult surgery that has a good chance of dying wouldn't have their family be able to sue for much if they die.
This may seem unfair to the people suing, but it's even more unfair for people that end up with lower quality doctors when the good ones leave the state.
what do you people think about this issue?
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To live is to decay.
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