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WASHINGTON,
D.C. – U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) issued “The Bush Administration
Misstatement of the Day” on medical malpractice.
Vice
President Dick Cheney said on July 1, 2004 during a speech in Macon, Georgia:
Our
country needs medical liability reform to control the costs of health care.
Here in Georgia and across the nation, doctors should be able to spend
their time healing patients, not fighting off frivolous lawsuits.
However,
the Congressional
Budget Office (CBO) found that the costs from malpractice lawsuits
represent less than 2% of the nation's total health care spending. According
to the CBO:
"Malpractice
costs amounted to an estimated $24 billion in 2002, but that figure represents
less than 2 percent of overall health care spending. Thus, even a reduction
of 25 percent to 30 percent in malpractice costs would lower health care
costs by only about 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent, and the likely effect on
health insurance premiums would be comparably small.”
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