Medical Liability Reform

Abstract

IN THE past decade, proposals for the reform of medical liability law have proliferated. These proposals have in some cases merged with the movement for the general reform of tort law generated by the liability insurance crisis that struck broad areas of business and professional enterprise during 1985 and 1986. The result has been the development of a wide variety of approaches to liability reform. This is, therefore, a pivotal time in the history of medical liability reform; the debate over medical liability has now evolved beyond a focus on litigation technicalities and into a fundamental reexamination of basic options. Different medical liability reforms, of course, would have different implications for a broad range of public policy considerations: health care providers' incentives, the quality of care provided, whether to rely more or less on governmental regulation of health care, systems of medical discipline, and the compensation of patients. For example,