Study blames insurance companies for crisis

I have said this before and felt like a voice crying out in the wilderness: There was never any need for the Missouri General Assembly to enact the litigation reforms that were a centerpiece of Governor Matt Blunt's legislative agenda.
I have written over and over again that a could deal of the blame for high malpractice premiums could be laid at the feet of the insurance companies. A new study publicized today in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch agrees with that assessment.
The article, which can be found on the Post-Dispatch website (I tried putting the link on this page, but it was screwing up the page) says insurance companies have been inflating the rates for malpractice insurance.
What the article fails to mention is that the Republican legislators who pushed through these misguided bills receive a considerable amount of campaign contributions from insurance companies and also pile up the gifts from the companies' lobbyists.