Democrats Unveil Medical Malpractice Proposal

Now Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., have introduced the "Medical Error Disclosure and Compensation Act," which would provide funding to doctors, hospitals, and health systems that put in place mechanisms to promptly disclose medical mistakes or other mishaps to patients, offer compensation if the health provider is at fault, and ensure that those mistakes are reported to experts who can analyze them and recommend system changes to avoid similar problems in the future.

The problem with this approach is who decides what constitutes a medical mistake, how much of an injury occured, how much of the injury is due to the mistake and how much should be paid to the patient? These are basically the issues we already deal with and this article doesn't address them.

Sure, claims will be down if the patient doesn't have to file one, but is compensated without the claim. And, of course, if the doctor just admits a mistake and accepts liability, costs will go down without a trial. Gee, if all the criminals we arrest would just plead guilty, look at the potential savings for the criminal justice system!! According to this plan, they should just call the DA's office and turn themselves in.