The nation’s neurosurgeons are urging lawmakers to pay close attention to the newly released findings of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which confirm that medical liability reform does indeed reduce the use of healthcare services and will save the system money. In an October 9, 2009 letter to Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT), CBO Director Douglas W. Elmendorf stated that a comprehensive set of tort reforms will reduce the nation’s deficit by $54 billion over 10 years. The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) point to these significant CBO findings as even more evidence that proven medical liability reforms are an essential component to healthcare reform legislation.
“We cannot have meaningful healthcare reform in this country if the final plan doesn’t include concrete measures to ease the burdens of medical liability,” states Troy M. Tippett, MD, President of the AANS. “It’s a sad reality that our doctors do a delicate balancing act of choosing what’s best for patients while also trying to deflect frivolous lawsuits. It has created an unwinnable cycle of unnecessary tests and procedures and costs which are spiraling up and out of control. The time to set our healthcare system right again is now and these CBO findings show that we literally can’t afford not to take action.”
The tort reforms identified by CBO as contributing to these significant savings include: