At one time the family doctor was one of the most trusted professionals upon which a family depended. However, that is often no longer the case. Medical malpractice has become a part of life, and a fear for those who see the hundreds of thousands of illnesses, injuries, and death actually caused by medical practitioners, institutions, and medications. That's why medical malpractice liability insurance has become both a necessity and a curse. It's necessary because the cases in which courts have awarded bank-breaking damages to plaintiffs that could put a doctor or hospital out of business. It's a curse because medical malpractice liability insurance is so expensive and hard to get that some doctors still have difficulty finding and paying for such insurance, as well as the fact that the patient ends up paying for this expensive necessity through higher fees, more tests to protect the doctor from such suits, and losing doctors who relocate to states with more palatable tort laws.