Study On The Legal System Of China’s Medical Liability Insurance

Medical treatment is a high-risk action with requirements for highly professional standards and technical levels. In recent years, the caseload of medical malpractice due to medical damage practice has increasingly risen. Medical incidents of violence have frequently been reported to the superior, which leads to the mounting tension in doctor-patient relationships. Mere dependence on incomplete medical tort system has been unable to adapt to this stark reality in China.In some regions of China, the implement of compulsory medical liability insurance has already been attempted to make an improvement on the doctor-patient relationships and cases as doctors take defensive medicine for the purpose of risk elusion. However, in general, medical disputes cannot be settled effectively in time because of the medical liability insurance in China with the paucity of unified legal system and norm as well as a valid system design and the large gap between insurance products launched by the insurance companies and actual demands for medical institutions among Chinese people, plus the complex procedure of settlement of claims. All above led to a low insurance coverage of medical institutions in the regions where voluntary insurance has been put into practice. Therefore, in addition to the inherent problems of the system, there exist other issues, for example, whether the right of direct compensation claims should be conferred on the injured, whether compulsive objects of insurance led by the local government mainly based on large and medium-sized hospitals is rational, whether the medical liability insurance can be helpful for hospitals to solve the disturbing medical disputes, how to design medical liability insurance clauses, etc.In order to research on these issues, the following five chapters are given apart from the introduction and conclusion part.Chapter Two mainly introduces the basic theory of the medical liability insurance and its development at home and abroad, starting with the relationship between the liability insurance and the liability system of civil compensation, and further study on the relationship between the medical liability insurance system and the tort liability system, which are interconnected and interactional.Chapter Three starting with the medical liability insurance contract, respectively introduces the legal relation of the insurer, the applicant, the insurant and the third party in the medical liability insurance, together with a detailed study on the scope of liability and the exception from liability. At the end of the chapter, the author holds that the right of direct compensation claims should be conferred on the injured in the medical liability insurance contract, and then further analyzes the basis for the feasibility of the third party’s right of direct claim.Chapter Four focuses on the analysis of the status quo of the Chinese medical liability insurance system. In the first part introduces the creation and development of the medical liability insurance. The insurance has already been advocated but not actually carried out in some regions of China, only to remain as an official document without real implementation. The second part makes an analysis of the factors that currently restrict the development of the medical liability insurance system, like market demand shortage, the imperfect legal system, etc.Chapter Five mainly introduces the American medical liability insurance system. The first part describes its development course and two crises as well as the reasons for their outbreak. The second part summarizes the enlightenment from the experience that the American medical liability insurance system has developed.Chapter Six points out that Chinese medical liability insurance system should adopt the way of special legislation, establish unified regulations on the medical liability insurance system and perfect medical liability insurance clauses. In the end, the author puts forward the conception of designing medical liability insurance clauses.