Financial effects of defensive medicine and medical malpractice insurance

Abstract

Although all Americans may utilize, benefit from, and complain about healthcare, few actually understand the underlying costs. It is easy to blame politicians, large hospitals, or greedy physicians for our nation's current healthcare crisis, but they might not be at fault. Through analyzing two aspects of healthcare costs—defensive medicine and medical malpractice insurance—I hope to give the average American the ability to understand how both of these factor in to what they are paying for healthcare.