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Harris Poll: More Than Half of Americans Favor Malpractice Reform From: art fougner, md (evsono@pipeline.com) Thu May 6 12:18:02 2004 Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ] Next message: art fougner, md: "Re: Pediatric case" Previous message: Lynn D. Montgomery, M.D.: "Re: Pediatric case" National Survey Shows That More Than Half of Adult Americans Support Medical Malpractice Reform 59% of Americans feel that malpractice suits against doctors and physicians’ fears of being sued harm the quality of patient care Rochester, NY—March 6, 2003—Recent results of The Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive® Health-Care Poll showed that more than half (58%) of adults in America favor new legislation to limit the costs of medical liability and reduce the costs of medical malpractice insurance. Only 16% of the public would oppose such a limitation, while a full 25% of those surveyed said they "don’t know." Some key findings of the poll, which measured the public’s opinion about medical malpractice reform, are: Only 16% of those surveyed said they would oppose new legislation to limit the costs of medical liability and reduce the costs of medical malpractice insurance, while three times that number (58%) would favor it. A full 25% said they "don’t know." Two-thirds (66%) of adults think that malpractice claims are brought against doctors when there has been no malpractice "very often" (26%) or "somewhat often" (40%). 59% feel that malpractice suits against doctors and their fear of being sued harms the quality of care to patients. Half (48%) favor a cap on malpractice liability damages while a quarter (26%) opposes it, and 25% said they don’t know. 62% favor having medical malpractice cases tried in special courts presided over by medical professionals and other experts to review and decide injury cases while only 17% oppose, and 21% don’t know. Among the 75% who have an opinion regarding malpractice reform, better than a 3-to-1 majority favor reform. Almost a 2-to-1 majority favor a $250,000 cap on awards for non-economic damages (including pain and suffering, and punitive damages) related to medical malpractice claims. These survey data seem to indicate that older people favor reform—75% of those aged 55 years and over favor reform, compared with only 46% of those aged 18-24 years. Almost twice as many women (33%) as men (17%) said they "don’t know" if they favor or oppose new legislation to limit the costs of medical liability and reduce the costs of medical malpractice insurance. Also, twice as many African Americans (34%) said they oppose legislation compared to Hispanics (17%) and whites (15%). Interestingly, African Americans, overall, were split on this question. Humphrey Taylor, chairman of The Harris Poll at Harris Interactive commented, "This survey shows strong support by the public for their doctors and the physician’s position in this matter, in general." http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=590 -- art fougner, md ich bin ein New Yorker Next message: art fougner, md: "Re: Pediatric case" Previous message: Lynn D. Montgomery, M.D.: "Re: Pediatric case"

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