Reply #51: I'm not following your logic...and please read this Edwards article. [View All]

Investment income is an important part of how insurance companies remain profitable, just as it is for some households. It's not incidental or some type of bonus. It's built into their profit structure. Premium income is another important income component. There are many key expense components, many far more significant than malpractice awards, such as labor expenses (including executive compensation), office rent, etc. For the "let's limit awards to the injured" argument to make sense, the proponents need to demonstrate (among other things) that those awards were a bigger factor than other factors and that changes in them recently caused the profit picture to change when the other factors are held constant. The evidence is that investment losses, not malpractice awards, are a much bigger factor in their current woes.

Edwards identifies the real sources of the problems:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13116-2003May19