Legal News

Obama Bucks the Trial Lawyers: Is Med-Mal Reform Imminent?

By Ashby Jones

The nitty gritty of the health-care debate that’s kept Washington busy over the last several months is, to borrow a phrase from law-review articles and the like, “beyond the purview” of this blog. (For all ye need to know on that front, check out the WSJ’s outstanding Health Blog).

But our ears perked up this morning when we heard that last night, President Obama, in his long-anticipated speech to a joint session of Congress, outlined a new pilot program to move medical-malpractice cases out of the court system and before expert panels and arbitrators. Click here for the story about the speech, from the WSJ; for the NYT’s story.

White House officials say the program, first floated by President George W. Bush, would be instituted by executive order and wouldn’t be included in the health-care legislation.

It was one of the few areas of the plan that Republicans praised, and it won strong endorsement from doctors, who say the threat of lawsuits drives up medical costs by encouraging defensive medicine.

“We think this is just an excellent first step,” said Rebecca Patchin, board chairman for the American Medical Association.

LBers, for now, we don’t have much to say about this, other than that we’ll be following whether Obama makes good on his pledge and, of course, how this all plays out down the line. Some early thoughts: How will an arbitration system differ from the court system? Why, exactly, will this be better than the court system? And of course, we’ve got questions about the details (wherein the devil lies, of course): How will the arbitrators and/or experts be chosen? Will their decisions be appealable? Will punitive damages be off the table in these arbitrations? So many thoughts, so many questions.

In any event, we’d love to know how you feel about this, LBers.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 10, 2009 (boomark / email).