Reaching the summit on health reform
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to protect themselves, doctors often order more tests and procedures than necessary. Such “defensive medicine” increases annual medical costs by close to $200 billion.

Several modest reforms, including caps on non-economic damages, would help curb this wasteful practice and thus lower health costs. In fact, research shows that direct malpractice reform, including caps on non-economic damages, lowers health expenditures by 5 to 9 percent without any impact on mortality or medical complications.

Medical-liability reform would also improve patients’ access to care. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that states with caps on malpractice damages have 12 percent more physicians per capita than do states without.

President Obama has expressed interest in implementing meaningful malpractice reform. He’s in step with voters on the issue.

Americans are desperate for substantive health care reform. But as the election in Massachusetts demonstrated, they’re not on board with the budget-busting bills currently under consideration. It’s time for lawmakers to heed the voters’ call and work toward a more bipartisan version of health reform.

Janet Trautwein is CEO of the National Association of Health Underwriters.