The Medical Malpractice Myth or Marx Went Away but Karl Stayed Behind

The Medical Malpractice Myth

Author: Tom Baker

American health care is in crisis because of exploding medical malpractice litigation. Insurance premiums for doctors and malpractice lawsuits are skyrocketing, rendering doctors both afraid and unable to afford to practice medicine. Undeserving victims sue at the drop of a hat, egged on by greedy lawyers, and receive eye-popping awards that insurance companies, hospitals, and doctors themselves struggle to pay. The plaintiffs and lawyers always win; doctors, and the nonlitigious, always lose; and affordable health care is the real victim.

This, according to Tom Baker, is the myth of medical malpractice, and as a reality check he offers The Medical Malpractice Myth, a stunning dismantling of this familiar, but inaccurate, picture of the health care industry. Are there too many medical malpractice suits? No, according to Baker; there is actually too much medical malpractice, with only a fraction of the cases ever seeing the inside of a courtroom. Is too much litigation to blame for the malpractice insurance crisis? No, for that we can look to financial trends and competitive behavior in the insurance industry. Point by point, Baker—a leading authority on insurance and law—pulls together the research that demolishes the myths that have taken hold and suggests a series of legal reforms that would help doctors manage malpractice insurance while also improving patient safety and medical accountability.

The Medical Malpractice Myth is a book aimed squarely at general readers but with radical conclusions that speak to the highest level of domestic policymaking.

Publishers Weekly

In January 2005, President Bush declared the medical malpractice liability system "out of control." The president's speech was merely an echo of what doctors and politicians (mostly Republicans) have been saying for years-that medical malpractice premiums are skyrocketing due to an explosion in malpractice litigation. Along comes Baker, director of the Insurance Law Center at the University of Connecticut School of Law, to puncture "the medical malpractice myth" with a talent for reasoned argument and incisiveness. He counters that the real problem is "too much medical malpractice, not too much litigation," and that the cost of malpractice is lost lives and the "pain and suffering of tens of thousands of people every year"-most of whom do not sue. Baker argues that the rise in medical premiums has more to do with economic cycles and the competitive nature of the insurance industry than runaway juries. Finally, Baker offers an alternative in the form of evidence-based medical liability reform that seeks to decrease the incidence of malpractice and also protect doctors from rising premium costs. Having worked with insurance companies, law firms and doctors, Baker brings experience and perspective to his book, which is sure to be important and controversial in future debates. (Nov.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Baker (director, Insurance Law Ctr., Univ. of Connecticut Sch. of Law) has written a serious text, the central thesis of which is that there is "an epidemic of medical malpractice, not malpractice lawsuits." Citing major studies mostly from medical and legal literature, he debunks a litany of perceived myths around malpractice lawsuits and convincingly makes the case that malpractice lawsuits actually improve patient care and that big payments are the rare exception, not the rule. His stated goal is to reframe the discussion about medical malpractice lawsuits, and in each of the eight chapters, he covers both the myth and the reality of medical malpractice. Unlike Harvey Waschman's more readable Lethal Medicine: The Epidemic of Medical Malpractice in America, few case histories are presented here, and Baker assumes a degree of legal knowledge on the part of readers. A glossary, then, would have been helpful to define such terms as tort liability. A more comprehensive title is To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, edited by Linda T. Kohn and others, available both in print and freely available online. Well researched with more than ten pages of references, Baker's timely book is appropriate for public, medical, and academic libraries. (Index not seen.)-Martha E. Stone, Treadwell Lib., Boston Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

1	The medical malpractice myth	1
2	An epidemic of medical malpractice, not malpractice lawsuits	22
3	An insurance crisis, not a tort crisis	45
4	The malpractice insurance companies' secret	68
5	Why we need medical malpractice lawsuits	93
6	The goods on defensive medicine	118
7	Dr. Bill may be gone, but Dr. Jane is here to see you	140
8	Evidence-based medical liability reform	157

See also: GI in Your Pocket or Health Insurance Resources

Marx Went Away--but Karl Stayed Behind

Author: Caroline Humphrey

When it appeared in 1983, Caroline Humphrey's Karl Marx Collective was the first detailed study of the Soviet collective farm system. Through careful ethnographic work on two collective farms operated in Buryat communities in Siberia, the author presented an absorbing--if dispiriting--account of the actual functioning of a planned economy at the local level.

Now this classic work is back in print in a revised edition that adds new material from the author's most recent research in the former Soviet Union. In two new chapters she documents what has happened to the two farms in the collapsing Russian economy. She finds that collective farms are still the dominant agricultural forms, not out of nostalgic sentiment or loyalty to the Soviet ideal, but from economic and political necessity.

Today the collectives are based on households and small groups coming together out of choice. There have been important resurgences in "traditional" thinking about kinship, genealogy, shamanism and mountain cults; and yet all of this is newly formed by its attempt to deal with post-Soviet realities.

Marx Went Away will appeal to students and scholars of anthropology, political science, economics, and sociology.

"The book should be on the shelf of every student of Soviet affairs." --Times Literary Supplement

Caroline Humphrey is Fellow of King's College and Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

Library Journal

Originally published as Karl Marx Collective: Economy, Society, and Religion in a Siberian Collective Farm, this volume was dubbed a fascinating and detailed study by LJs reviewer. Humphrey explains the Buryats, a group of farmers on Siberias Lake Baikal who have developed a distinctive communal approach to social life, politics, and culture. This edition has been updated to include the authors most current analysis. Her work remains valuable for the research collection. (LJ 9/1/83)