MEDICAL MALPRACTICE RATES

Speaking before hundreds of doctors and medical
workers in a St. Louis suburb, President Bush called
attention to a neurosurgeon on stage with him in the
small auditorium. The doctor, the president said, was
paying $265,000 a year in premiums for insurance
against malpractice claims. But for all the worry
over higher medical expenses, legal costs do not seem
to be at the root of the recent increase in
malpractice insurance premiums. Government and
industry data show only a modest rise in malpractice
claims over the last decade. And last year, the trend
in payments for malpractice claims against doctors
and other medical professionals turned sharply
downward, falling 8.9 percent, to a nationwide total
of $4.6 billion, according to data compiled by the
Health and Human Services Department. The recent
spike in premiums says more about the insurance
business than it does about the judicial system. "You
get these jolts in insurance prices periodically, and
they attract a lot of attention," said Frank A.
Sloan, a Duke University economist who has been
following medical malpractice trends for nearly 20
years. "They're a result of a confluence of many
things." "The insurers were catching up, getting to
where they should have been," said Larry Smarr, the
president of the Physician Insurers Association of
America, a trade group of companies that provide more
than 60 percent of the nation's medical malpractice
insurance.
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