Here is a good how-to on how to be an honest blogger– go read Kevin Drum discussing Medical Malpractice.
On reading the report more carefully, I now note that all these figures are for median payouts, which wouldn’t be affected at all by a few huge awards. I’m not sure what’s going on, but this is so obviously the wrong statistic to use in this case that there must be some kind of axe to grind here. I’m now very skeptical that this report is, as it claims, “not driven by a political ideology or industry-driven self-interest.”
What’s more, although Appendix 2 does indeed show that premiums have gone up only 35% in states without caps, there are several states with enormous increases and several with tiny increases, and it’s hard to see any correlation at all between median payout increases and median premium increases. This might be due to the use of medians, it might genuinely be due to different regulatory regimes, or it might be something else. Who knows?
Why can’t we get this type of honesty and self-scrutiny from the mainstream media?