In next few days you will hear a lot from President Bush, as he will be bashing trial lawyers and medical malpractice lawsuits. Beware "judicial hellholes," said President Bush last week when he made a visit to Illinois. He was talking specifically about Madison County and St. Clair County during his visit to Illinois.
Statistics show that towering medical malpractice insurance rates have driven more than 160 doctors out of Southern Illinois in the last few years. This has put the area on an acute shortage of doctors.
Then why bash litigates for it? Because it is politically advantageous. Trial lawyers are key donors of the Democratic Party. Small-business owners and insurance companies are important donors to the Republican Party. So who else can be better targets than them?
But will this really improve the health care system? It doesn’t seem so at least to the team of economists and law professors appointed by the White House for studying the medical malpractice issue.
They view that we need a system that will focus on reducing errors rather than fixing what’s done. A proper vigilance by medical professionals on themselves will be better than law forcing them to do so. They envisage a system where the small minority of doctors who lead to errors and ultimately lead to hike in the medical insurance premiums should be identified and be scrapped out of the system.
But it seems like President Bush does not want to swallow this pill.
