Do Doctors Practice Defensive Medicine?
利用1984、1987和1990年老年心脏病患者的医保数据，发现减少医生责任压力的医疗事故改革可降低5%至9%的医疗支出，且不显著影响死亡率或并发症，表明改革能减少防御性医疗行为。
“Defensive medicine” is a potentially serious social problem: if fear of liability drives health care providers to administer treatments that do not have worthwhile medical benefits, then the current liability system may generate inefficiencies much larger than the costs of compensating malpractice claimants. To obtain direct empirical evidence on this question, we analyze the effects of malpractice liability reforms using data on all elderly Medicare beneficiaries treated for serious heart disease in 1984, 1987, and 1990. We find that malpractice reforms that directly reduce provider liability pressure lead to reductions of 5 to 9 percent in medical expenditures without substantial effects on mortality or medical complications. We conclude that liability reforms can reduce defensive medical practices.