How safe is the health care system in United States? Shockingly, a flight on a domestic airline is safer than a stay in the hospital (Webster). In the United States, a patient has a 36 in 100,000 chance of dying in the hospital from a medical mistake. According to the Institute of Medicine, in November 1999, the estimated death toll each year due to medical mistakes has reached up to 98,000 (When Doctors Make Mistakes). In fact, deaths caused by medical mistakes rank as the fifth leading cause of death in the United States (Webster). What can be done to decrease the number of medical mistakes? Some feel the obvious answer is more regulation; however, more regulation of hospitals to reduce medical error is not necessarily beneficial.
             According to an online source, Facts on File, on February 22, 2000, Bill Clinton proposed new regulations for administering medical care. His proposal, based on federal officials' review of a 1999 Institute of Medicine report on medical errors, called for a state-based national mandatory error reporting system. In this system, hospitals would be required to publicly disclose serious, preventable adverse events, but not the names of patients and health care professionals involved. All states would have mandatory reporting systems within three years, according to the plan, which also called for the Forum for Health Care Quality Management to develop a core set of reporting standards for states (Medicine and Health: Clinton Calls for Reporting). According to an online article, currently there are about 20 states that have implemented mandatory reporting systems in their hospitals; many have been in existence for over 15 years without any major problems with litigation (Crane).
             Many believe fewer medical errors would occur if more regulations were in place for reporting errors. First, proponents of the system believe such a system can prevent errors. C.Q. Researcher explains that the Inst...