This report addresses a deceptively simple question: How can the productivity of American health care be substantially improved? Productivity, in lay terms, is the ratio of output to inputs. A more colloquial rendition of the question might be: how can we get a lot more bang for our health care...

Background. This study is the first to quantify physicians' malpractice insurance limits. It also examines the connection between policy size and payments on claims, including the frequency of settlement at the policy limits and the frequency of out-of-pocket payments. Methods. Statistical...

This article responds to a provocative article on American health policy by Professors Clark Havighurst and Barak Richman. Havighurst & Richman argue from a market-oriented perspective that the health care system is "rigged against the true interests of the political majority," and this...

The elderly account for a disproportionate share of medical spending, but little is known about how they are treated by the medical malpractice system, or how tort reform affects elderly claimants. We compare paid medical malpractice claims brought by elderly plaintiffs in Texas during 1988-2009...

In 2003, Texas adopted House Bill 4 ("HB 4") which capped non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases and included several other smaller reforms. To proponents, HB 4 is a silver bullet, encouraging physicians to move to Texas by reducing frivolous lawsuits, preventing excessive damage...

Health insurance is once again on the policy agenda, and it is déjà vu all over again. There are the same statistics and anecdotes about the uninsured. There are the same reports by government agencies, think tanks, and do-gooder organizations. There are the same policy entrepreneurs, pushing...