Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

The Crystal Ball is not Cloudy

As I predicted, the Liar in Chief went to Madison County and said "Junk lawsuits are so unpredictable, they drive up insurance costs for all doctors." He claimed that unscrupulous trial lawyers had caused a malpractice "crisis" by filing "baseless" lawsuits. He claimed (without any evidence whatsoever) that doctors are turning away patients with complicated, life threatening conditions for fear of lawsuits.

His solution to these problems? Cap jury awards for non-economic damages at $250,000.

Relevance of solution to stated problem? Zero.

The legal system relies on judges and juries to identify frivolous or "junk" lawsuits. Such lawsuits do not result in awards of damages. Damages are awarded when the legal system finds that negligence has in fact occurred. The LIC did not say how he would propose eliminating or restricting "junk" lawsuits.

Of course, the media coverage of this issue is up to its usual standards. CBS News last night reported that Mr. Bush had called for reforming the malpractice system to protect doctors and patients, and reduce insurance costs. It then said that Ted Kennedy had blasted the President's proposals. That was the extent of the information provided to the public. Fair and balanced, you know. It's not their job to evaluate the rhetoric on such subjective standards as correspondence to reality.

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