Medical Malpractice Insurance

Do Medical Malpractice Premiums Drive Up Medical Costs?

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• Some Claim That Rising Malpractice Costs Are Making Healthcare Unaffordable

• Malpractice Insurance Premiums Amount To Less Than 2/3 Of 1% Of All Medical Costs

• Malpractice Costs Are A Negligible Contributor To Overall Healthcare Costs

Sources: Personal Health Care Expenditures taken from the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services and is $1.67 Trillion. Total spent on medical malpractice insurance reflects US total medical malpractice premiums written according to AM Best State Line Report A2 for 2003 (the insurance industry's leading provider of information and company ratings) and comes to $10.1 Billion. As a percentage, this comes to 0.6%. Other percentages from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with the .6 from Medical Malpractice subtracted out from "other spending".

Updated February 2005