Damage Caps in Nevada Going To State Supreme Court?
We’ve long held the opinion that so-called “damage caps” do nothing to drive down the costs of medicine. If that was the case, then surely the costs of medical care would have fallen precipitously in the states where there are caps in place. There has so far been no evidence that medical costs have gone down. The theory is that with liability caps in place, doctors will no longer be concerned about getting sued and will stop practicing “defensive medicine,” or performing unnecessary tests and procedures so that there is no chance of any diagnosis falling through the cracks. But practically speaking, doctors are still practicing medicine like they always have, regardless of whether or not they feel “protected” by damage caps.
When you think about it, the only people really “protected” by liability caps are the medical malpractice insurance companies. These insurance companies are the only ones who stand to gain by limiting the amount of non-economic damages that an injured patient can receive. After all, caps don’t prevent doctors from getting sued. They simply place a limit on the amount of money that the injured patients can receive. And the patients certainly don’t get anything positive out of the deal. Damage caps work under the erroneous assumption that any and all medical malpractice cases are the same, which means that as far as the courts are concerned, there is no difference between a patient who has to spend a few extra inconvenient days in the hospital and a patient who accidentally has the wrong limb taken off. Anything from a misdiagnosis to the death of an infant falls into a specific price range, between $0 and however much the cap is, which is usually in the neighborhood of $200,000.
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