Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Applied Economics
Publication Date
5-2016
ISSN
0003-6846
Page Number
5348
Keywords
health insurance, medical malpractice, health reform, Affordable Care Act
Disciplines
Health Law and Policy | Law
Abstract
This article evaluates the interdependence of medical malpractice insurance markets and health insurance markets. Prior research has addressed the performance of these markets, individually, without specifically quantifying the extent to which they are linked. Increasing levels of health insurance losses could increase the scale of potential malpractice claims, boosting medical malpractice losses, or could embody an improvement in medical care quality, which will reduce malpractice losses. Our results for a state panel data set from 2002 to 2009 demonstrate that health insurance losses are negatively related to medical malpractice insurance losses. An additional dollar of health insurance losses is associated with a $0.01–$0.05 reduction in medical malpractice losses. These findings have potentially important implications for assessments of the net cost of health insurance policies.
Recommended Citation
W. Kip Viscusi, J. Bradley Karl, and Patricia H. Born,
The Relationship between the Markets for Health Insurance and Medical Malpractice Insurance, 48 Applied Economics. 5348
(2016)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1558