When asked about factors behind rising malpractice insurance costs, 60% of Americans say “lawyers filing too many unwarranted lawsuits” is a “very” important reason for rising malpractice insurance costs, and about half say “patients making unwarranted claims against doctors” (53%) and “high profits made by insurance companies” (49%). About four in ten say the problem is “doctors making mistakes” (43%) or “juries making larger awards than are justified” (42%).

When asked to choose the MOST important reason behind rising malpractice insurance costs, it’s clear that the public sees the number of lawsuits as a bigger problem than the size of jury awards. Nearly one-third (32%) say that the most important factor behind rising malpractice insurance rates is “lawyers filing unwarranted lawsuits”. Smaller shares say “high profits of malpractice insurers” (15%), “patients making unwarranted claims against doctors” (14%), and “doctors making mistakes” (11%) are the most important factors. While most of the policy debate has focused on putting caps on jury awards, just 9% cite “juries making excessive awards” as the most important reason malpractice costs are rising.