PLA usually makes a fair amount of sense. The current post on the payouts of medical malpractice suit is excellent.
And, of course, my point in all this is that $4.2 Billion is not that much money. I know, that just sounds strange, but if you divide 4.2 billion by 280 million(current US population) we get a number that looks surprisingly like 15. As in $15 per person in the US to pay for all medical malpractice payouts in all of 2002.
Seriously, this is just ridiculous. The latest deficit projection for this year was recently stated to be $400 Billion(and it won't be, it will be at least $500 Billion). We are told by apologists for the current administration's failed fiscal and tax policies that this isn't that big of a deal, when viewed historically. Well, then, I guess 1% more wouldn't really be that big a deal, would it? There I just solved the medical malpractice problem by having the federal government pay for it.
What's that? You don't want to solve the problem that way? OK, but let's at least agree that we aren't going to claim that this is a giant crisis staring down the US health system. Because if I can put up $90 a year and take care of myself, my wife, my daughter, and three whiny opportunists, then it's not a big problem.