Justin:
"we ain't got national health and we do got, still, 
to some degree, the right to recover damages. We 
should defend it while arguing for national health. 
Which we are not going to get..." 

Doug:
"the current political battle is over whether to cap 
malpractice awards radically or not. An acquaintance 
was mangled by a Dallas hospital, spent some time in 
a coma and now is largely paralyzed, but thanks to 
tort reform in Texas, his award is capped at $250k. 
The doc and the hospital will carry on unpunished."

Justin is too pessimistic.  I can't see it any time soon 
in the US, but part of the reason for that is that you're 
all distracted by a minor tactical issue about a few 
people benefiting from lawsuits. A 'lucky' minority of 
people who are paralyzed were paralyzed because of 
malpractice, so they get money. Most don't. That's bad.

But in Doug's example, the hospital was punished to the 
tune of $250k, and the docter was probably disciplined. The 
bigger question is the effect that tort law has on hospitals. 
Hypothetically, say an HMO saves $12m p.a. by running tests 
that are not clinically necessary and cost $10m p.a.. That 
means that $10m is not being spent on real patient care. And 
that goes unpublished and largely unacknowledged. 

When we speak of malpractice, it doesn't generally refer to 
doctors butchering patients because they're drunk, but to 
honest professionals making mistakes. And when they are 
disporportionately punished for making mistakes, it 
encourages a timid conservatism that isn't necessarily best 
for patient care.

Justin:
"Btw, in case it wasn't quite clear, I have no material 
interest in opposing tort reform."

It wouldn't matter if you did. Tort lawyers are not wrong 
because they have material interests. I am uncomfortable with 
the way people try to disavow interest in political debate. 
Self-serving ideas are sometimes in the public good, and 
disinterested promotion of ideas can be terrible for the 
majority. We can only sort them out by debating the relative 
merits of the ideas, not the relatively disinterested moral 
worth of those propounding them.

James.

James Greenstein