A couple of weeks ago, I spotted a short article in The Wall Street Journal on the high number of fatal errors made by medical personnel in hospitals. In this article Professor Ralph Reiland discusses the same information.
Reiland’s point is to question why there should be a move to legislate a cap on non-economic damages in lawsuits over medical screw ups. I could support such a cap, though — if it were done at the state level. Constitutionally, Congress has no more business dictating the details of the tort system than it has in dictating the details of auto manufacturing. Victims of incompetence ought to be fully compensated for their losses, but when juries can award millions or billions on top of actual losses because some John Edwards-type lawyer has gotten them into a “send them a message” rage, the consequences are bad.
What I think is the important point in the statistics on medical blunders is that most if not all of them were the result of the conduct of LICENSED personnel. Licensing is always sold to the public on the grounds that it’s necessary to prevent incompetents from entering a profession and later harming patients or clients.
Doesn’t seem to work very well.
