Muse – Medical Malpractice Reform

Heading home today, I listened on C-Span as victims of medical malpractice, in a Democrat sponsored event, related their stories. As one might expect they were heart-wrenching and all that, but the topic got my mind percolating.

Personally, I don’t care for frivolous lawsuits either. But I recognize that when someone is wronged, they require appropriate compensation. It got me thinking about some alternative reforms that might be tired.

For example, when a procedure gone wrong effects a person, perhaps the doctor should be obligated to undo the damage done within reasonable parameters. All considered, it makes sense that if the doctors do wrong, they should be fully obligated to undo the wrong that is done. Then it becomes less a matter of money and more of fixing the problem.

Of course, that brings up the question of what one does when a family member is lost. If a procedure done wrong kills a child, how can one measure a means to repair that loss? It’s an emotional loss for the family, a monetary loss for them, as the child won’t grow to get a job and provide for his or her family. It’s a loss o the country for what promise the child might have had as well.

It’s a profound thing to think of, making it all the more curious how the focus falls back to money or the limit thereof. MEdical malpractice reform shouldn’t be a matter of placing caps. It should be a matter of analyzing the rate of malpractice, the misconduct of insurance companies, the needs of a family or individual and what is best for our people and the nation as a whole.

Yet as it stands the topic remains mired in simple, ineffectual terms that will ultimately lead to, should some prevail, a knee-jerk fix that does little more than punish those who need because of the acts of those who would exploit a system.