What's up doc?

I found several things in this Slate piece about medical malpractice interesting.

The basic idea is that people, like our resident award capper Mr. Malone, are being sold a myth by politicians when it comes to curbing damages on malpractice suits. The idea that all these runaway jury awards are killing the medical industry and driving up health insurance is, depending on how hard you want to go, either wrong or a lie unless you consider one half of one percent debilitating. Nope, it turns out that there's real evidence of malpractice, imagine that. No conspiracy, just people doing wrong and getting punished. Could it be that the legal system works? The article also shows how the market can do far more to lower medical insurance than Congress. Anesthesiologists went from having the highest and most claims to actually decreasing claims and insurance when they decided to take action, something that I guarantee all the state award caps, and/or any future national law, won't accomplish.

What I find particularly interesting 'bout this whole "let's cap awards" movement is that combined with the new FCC fines for naughty words it highlights two issues. Hypocracy, which is nothing new, and the arbitrary nature of punishment in Amercian law. In the article is an example of the kind of language that proponents of the FCC fine increase use, "We hope that the hefty fines will cause the multibillion dollar broadcast networks finally to take the law seriously." Ok, it's a defensible position, but it's also the exact language that attorneys use when arguing for jury awards against multi-billion dollar company's who's faulty products cause damage to customers. However, the GOP, in pushing it's cap agenda routinely say's that's a bad argument, and a clear sign of runaway juries or lottery victories. So the GOP says high fines bad when people get the award, and good when the governement gets the award. "Got to teach them a lesson" for saying bad words, "Got to stop people from cashing in" when it comes to us getting damaged. In essence you have two laws with contradictory mandates, creating mirror image problems. Now big corporations have fines set too low to matter, and broadcast corporations give the Feds lottery victories. Hypocracy, we love you.

Also note that the Feds have now arbitrarily decided that saying a naughty word is worth millions in peanalties, while medical malpractice or knowingly putting out a harmful product that results in permanent injury or death is capped out at $300k. This is particulary interesting given that the FCC is a political, not legal, organization prone to political motives and not bound by such hassles as "evidence," "witnesses" or "laywers." Take the recent record $3.3 million fine levied against CBS for an episode of "Without a Trace" based solely on what the article calls "manufactured" evidence, and what I call "hoax." Talk about frivolous and my bet is that that claim wouldn't survive a legal challenge. Good thing a government tribunal metes out the fines. At least docs and corps get a trial by jury, and the citizen has to make a claim in court. Someone please show me how this makes sense.