This AUDIT by the best firm I know of says that DIRECT costs of litigation and defensive medicine is 10% of health care. In addition, there is another breakdown chart that says 20% of cost is "poor quality care", part of which I believe can also be due to doctors just trying to cover their butt. That works out to about $200B$/yr... We could SAVE that much per year by reform the tort system instead of spending the additional 100B$/yr more!
TORT REFORM FIRST! TORT REFORM NOW!
Chill out a year and see what that begins to accomplish in lowering costs.
Tort reform can and should be done first, NOW and separately. There is no complex entwining and threaded set of current legislation that has to be taken into account. It can and SHOULD be done in a SEPARATE, PRISTINE manner that ALL of us can read, even the Congressmen voting on it! (Imagine that!)