It has been estimated that medical negligence is the third leading cause of death in the United States, right behind heart disease and cancer. Current estimates place annual deaths from medical mistakes in the neighborhood of between just over 200,000 and a little over 400,000 people. Insurance companies and doctors have lobbied hard to get states, like Arizona, to pass laws that make it very hard to sue health care providers for their negligence. That is in part why medical malpractice is an extremely technical field of law.