But med-mal? There’s money to be made, so of course that’s to be encouraged.

Trial lawyers have argued that the caps are unlawful. “If someone is going to be suffering their whole life, we think the idea of a one-size-fits-all arbitrary cap is just plain wrong,” said attorney Todd Smith. “It’s not constitutional.”

How is that not constitutional? In criminal law we have caps on every type of offense. For example, you can go to prison for a certain number of years for an assault, but no more than that. There is no “sky’s the limit” even if the victim of the assault will suffer their whole life. Why aren’t attorneys complaining about these “one-size-fits-all arbitrary caps” as well?

Of course, that question was rhetorical. Criminal prosecuting attorneys aren’t paid a contingency fee based on the number of years a defendant is sentenced to!

Of the 30K to 100K …..

How much of that is global fee (OR , anesthesia, post op care, etc.) versus surgeon’s fee?

And, how much is the surgeon actually REIMBURSED?

Based on your calculations, and giving conservative estimates, (one case a day) neurosurgeons make $10-50M/year. I find that hard to swallow.

Along with unicorns.

A neurosurgeon can cause lots of damage by his or her malpractice. Less so for an OBGYN and still less for a general surgeon. On the other hand a psychiatrist can do little damage so their premiums are about $7K per year.

Would you mandate that collision insurance on a Rolls be the same as a collision policy on a Corolla? Of course not! Would you mandate that the maximum anyone can seek from an insurance company for a collision damage claim is $10,000 no matter what car they drove? Of course not! Would you limit the legal liability of a drive of a car to $25,000 no matter how much damage he or she caused to lower premiums for everyone? Probably not.

So who is to blame. The insurance companies would rather pay out small fortunes for the defense of medical malpractice claims than pay the just claims of victims of medical malpractice. A physician has a disincentive to settle, unless the claim will go over the policy limits, because his name then gets reported to the national database. Plaintiff’s lawyers have little incentive to drag out or churn a case because they are almost always on contingency, whereas defense lawyers routinely do so because they are getting paid by the hour. Finally, payout caps and other limits on medmal awards will not likely lower premiums too much because much money spent is providing a physician with a defense split with amounts that actually go to the victims of the malpractice.