The bill for these awards, including the lawyers' take, is paid by all patients.
In an ideal world, it would be nice to compensate everyone for every misfortune. In the real world, we cannot afford to.
Furthermore, the threat of litigation has not altered the incidence of iatrogenic injury.
The cost of medical care will remain beyond the reach of everyone until this problem is resolved.
The bill for these awards, including the lawyers' take, is paid by all patients.
The solution is to have the costs of malpractice paid for solely by patients who want such legal protection. My wife and I should be able to sign a firm notarized promise to forgive our doctors for any mistakes they make with ourselves or our children. Malpractice insurers should be forced to base rates on the proportion of a doctor's patients who have signed such waivers, and health insurers should be required to charge separate rates for waiver and non-waiver patients.