Medical Malpractice insurance rates are the hot button in tort reform today. Doctors complain loudly and vehemently that they are being forced out of practice by high premiums. We're told that unless we do something to curb the wave of "frivolous lawsuits" against doctors, we won't have anymore doctors to go to. Doctors lobby very strongly to limit their ability to be sued.

It seems to me that attempting to lower malpractice insurance rates by capping damages of the catastrophically injured is treating the symptoms, and not the illness. The illness is high insurance rates; why not place a cap on malpractice premium rates?

Doctors who have no history of malpractice claims could have a cap in place of 1% or 2% of their gross income, with a maximum dollar cap of $10,000.00 per month. Doctors who have had malpractice claims could pay a higher percentage.

It puzzles me why doctors, an educated group of people, think that the cure for their high premiums is to try and cap damages on lawsuits. After all, premium rates aren't based solely on lawsuits. Malpractice premiums, like auto insurance premiums, take into consideration the locale of the doctor. Now, is a doctor in Duluth less likely to commit malpractice than a doctor in Miami? While the Miami doctor may see more patients than the Duluth doctor, he or she may not. After all, in some small towns, doctors are kept far busier than their big city counterparts because there aren't as many doctors per capita. Yet, in general, a big city practitioner will pay more in premiums than a small town practitioner. Why?

Because insurance companies charge what the market will bear. But instead of attacking the predatory pricing scheme of the insurance cartel, doctors get whipped into an anti-lawyer, anti-patient frenzy and become convinced that every patient is itching to file a malpractice lawsuit. So the doctors focus their efforts on getting laws passed that make it harder and less attractive to file malpractice lawsuits.

Wouldn't doctors be better served by lobbying for strict regulation of their premiums? Capping damages may or may not lower premiums – most insurance companies admit it will not lower premiums - but a regulatory board that prevents doctors from being gouged certainly would lower premiums.

Some may argue that it would be unconstitutional to tell a business what they may or may not charge for their product. If this is so, then wouldn't it also be unconstitutional to tell a judge or jury how much they may award a plaintiff in a lawsuit?

The truth is that until insurance reform is put into place, doctors will always be subject to the capricious whims of malpractice insurance carriers.