Because there is enough truth there that people buy the broader argument made by the rightwing. In fact, they are using problems in the medical malpractice area -- where there is lots of sympathy for doctors and hospitals making what in many cases are tough calls -- to push a broader tort reform that would benefit other corporate actors for whose acts there would be no sympathy.
The danger is that by not acknowledging the problems of lawsuits in the medical field and dealing with them directly and actively, we may lose out on rights in the much broader field of product liability. A case could be made that a strategic retreat on medical malpractice might be needed to save a much broader area of rights. This is the analogy to welfare reform that James is making I think, that the left's failure to acknowledge some problems and deal with them can lead to momentum for far more drastic attacks on the system.
On the other hand, the alternative is vigorous reform by the left, but that takes talking about the problem at almost the same level of intensity as the right, so that the alternative gets a public hearing. It's not enough to have better reforms in our back pocket. We need to promote them with the same intensity as the opposition.
Doug, you list a few reforms:
>In a civilized country, there'd be outside audit boards consisting of
>medical and other experts that monitored the performance of
>providers, with necessary investigative and disciplinary powers.
>We're nowehere near that in the U.S. But the question right now is do
>you take away the right to sue or keep it? Achieving a civilized
>system isn't in the cards right now, but we can keep trying.
Actually, Florida just passed a couple of amendments to reform licensing of doctors. Floridians for Patient Protection, a committee formed by the Florida Academy of Trial Lawyers, put two initiatives on the ballot, both of which won.
Amendment 8 calls for the revocation of a doctor's medical license if he or she has been found to have committed malpractice three times in Florida or other states
Amendment 7 opens up physician review records to the public.
These measures are an effective form of counterattack that emphasizes disciplining bad actors and assuring better information for the public. That kind of proactive response is better than trying to refute "tort reform" advocates point for point, since people believe there is some kind of problem in the system. So you either propose alternative avenues for reform or you end up getting steamrolled.
Nathan Newman