There is abundant evidence that tort reform reduces health care spending. Studies by Kessler & McClellan (1996 and 2002) found that spending on myocardial infarction and ischemic heart disease was reduced in states that enacted tort reform.

They concluded that if malpractice reforms "were implemented throughout the United States, expenditures on cardiac disease would fall by more than $450 million annually for the first two years and by $600 million annually three to five years after adoption, with no significant decline in health outcomes."

Another group (Smith-Bindman, McCulloch, Ding, Quale, and Chu) found a greater use of emergency CT and MRI scans in states without reforms.

An independent review by the Congressional Budget Office (Elmondorf, 2009) concluded that “the weight of the empirical evidence now demonstrates a link between tort reform and the use of healthcare services.”

I'm not saying that there's not a downside to caps and other malpractice reforms. But when you say "none of these measures have done anything to curtail the rising cost of healthcare" and that the public is being "bamboozled" I think there's room for disagreement.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3195420/