TY  - JOUR
AU  - Avraham,Ronen
AU  - Dafny,Leemore S.
AU  - Schanzenbach,Max M.
TI  - The Impact of Tort Reform on Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Premiums
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15371
PY  - 2009
Y2  - September 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15371
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15371.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ronen Avraham
University of Texas School of Law
Austin, TX  78705
E-Mail: ravraham@law.utexas.edu

Leemore Dafny
Department of Management and Strategy
Kellogg School of Management
Northwestern University
2001 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL  60208-2001
Tel: 847/467-7511
Fax: 847/467-1777
E-Mail: l-dafny@kellogg.northwestern.edu

Max Schanzenbach
Northwestern University School of Law
357 East Chicago Ave
Chicago, IL  60611
Tel: 3125034425
E-Mail: m-schanzenbach@law.northwestern.edu
AB  - We evaluate the effect of tort reform on employer-sponsored health insurance premiums by exploiting state-level variation in the timing of reforms.  Using a dataset of healthplans representing over 10 million Americans annually between 1998 and 2006, we find that caps on non-economic damages, collateral source reform, and joint and several liability reform reduce premiums by 1 to 2 percent each.  These reductions are concentrated in PPOs rather than HMOs, suggesting that can HMOs can reduce “defensive” healthcare costs even absent tort reform.   The results are the first direct evidence that tort reform reduces healthcare costs in aggregate; prior research has focused on particular medical conditions.
ER  -