Tort reform is coasting along

Someone here is fudging the facts, but who?

The Washington Post has this story:

Tort Reform Could Save $54 Billion, CBO Says

-- 10 times more than previously estimated.

The CBO report lends credence to Republican arguments that substantive limits on malpractice lawsuits will reduce health-care costs.

New research shows that legal reforms would not only lower malpractice insurance premiums for medical providers, but also would spur providers to save money by ordering fewer tests and procedures aimed primarily at defending their decisions in court, Douglas W. Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, wrote in a letter to Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah).

While over on the other coast, the Los Angeles Times has this one:

Medical malpractice reform savings would be small, report says

-- far lower than advocates have estimated.

Enacting a cap on pain-and-suffering and punitive damages, changing liability laws and tightening the statute of limitations on malpractice claims would lower total healthcare spending by about one-half of 1% each year -- $11 billion at the current level -- according to an estimate by the nonpartisan agency.

The agency found that reducing those measures through malpractice reform would lower healthcare spending by three-tenths of 1%.

The figure is far lower than previous estimates by groups backing malpractice reform. On Sunday, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) blasted Democrats for blocking attempts to reform malpractice laws. "Almost everybody agrees that we can save between $100 billion and $200 billion if we had effective medical malpractice reform," he said.