Change Medical Liability Laws to Reduce the Frequency and Severity of Claims
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This document explores how changing medical liability laws to reduce the frequency and severity of claims would affect health system performance along nine dimensions. Changing medical liability laws plausibly might reduce waste. But such changes would have only a minimal direct effect on overall spending; evidence of effects on health and capacity is mixed. There is no evidence about the effects of changing liability laws on consumer financial risk, reliability of care, patient experience, or coverage. There is no broad legal impediment to changing medical liability laws: Such changes have already been implemented by many state legislatures.
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