According to the General Accounting Office of the United States
Government Accountability Offices in 2003, while there were many
increases for rate increases in healthcare costs, medical malpractice
suits are the primary driver of these costs. In the midst of all of
these budget cuts, we have the power to reign in medical related costs
by asking our Senators, Representatives, and President to place
restrictions on malpractice. Thus, we need to ask these elected
officials to adopt some of the Medical Liability Reforms of Texas and Indiana,
create special medical malpractice courts, limit noneconomic damages,
and reduce the statute of limitations of action in order to stop the
abuses of malpractice suits and to stop the dramatic increase of
healthcare costs.

With malpractice suits, doctors have to purchase insurance to combat
possible legal cases against them. These insurance costs keep rising
with increasing malpractice suits. With these legal affairs, 60% of
the malpractice suits are either withdrawn, dropped, or dismissed, and
of the cases that go through, 90% of the physicians are found NOT
negligent (according to "The Case for Medical Liability Reform" by the
American Medical Association). While this is encouraging that most of
the doctors are innocent and that most of the trials are not needed,
the tragic factor of these suits is that doctors must pay $22,000 to
$110,000 just to defend themselves (also according to the American
Medical Association) against a malpractice suit! As a result, doctors must                                                       pay more for insurance to allow them to defend themselves in these cases                                               (most of which amount to nothing) and patients must pay more for medical care. Because the insurance is so expensive for doctors, many of them move to other states where the
insurance costs less. Thus, there is a brain drain of doctors in many
states because of high malpractice insurance. Something must be done.

By enacting the ideas listed in the introduction, we can protect doctors, and thus
lower malpractice and overall medical costs. In the Texas Reforms, one
important aspect is that emergency room doctors cannot be charged for
negligence unless it was willful and wanton - similar to the Good
Samaritan Law. This aspect is extremely helpful because unless a
doctor truly wanted to hurt a patient, a lawyer cannot prove this
willful and wanton nature. These reforms protect doctors, good
doctors. Other parts of the reform include establishing a cap of
$250,000 per claimant on non-economic damage awards; limiting time for
filing a cause of action; toughening the standard of proof; raising
the bar on qualifying expert witnesses; and providing for periodic
payments of damages
(http://www.ibjonline.com/print_medical_malpractice_tort_reform.html).
In the case of Indiana's reforms, a case is reviewed by a group of three doctors of the speciality in which the case deals with (heart doctors will hear a heart surgery malpractice case), and they will determine if the malpractice case is legitimate and can continue through the courts.                                               

Also, by creating medical malpractice courts, judges specialized in medicine
hear cases and make decisions. Thus, doctors save money on not having
juries, and cases will be judged by a judge who deeply knows medicine
and can determine if and how much a person truly deserves in the
malpractice suit.

Additionally, limiting non-economic damages incurred by a patient makes sure that
there is a cap on how much money a plantiff can incur. This cap will
help to curb costs on ailments that do not have a dollar amount like
quality of life damages. Not having a dollar amount  or cap allows for a
plantiff to request exorbinant amounts of money.

Lastly, reducing the statute of limitations of action would make sure
that people are filing claims after malpractice incidences because
they truly had a poor doctor, not because they decided 5 years later
that they need money fast and that filing malpractice is the way to
go.

Thus, through the malpractice reforms listed above, we, as citizens of
the United States, can stop abuses in malpractice, work to lower
overall medical costs, and help to balance budgets.