Captive Audience for Bush Test Case

Given the less than smashing success in Mesopotamia, you'd think Dubya might want to devote most if not all of his energy to figuring out an exit strategy. Nah:

The Bush administration wants to make Mr. [Todd A.] Smith's profession [attorney/malpractice specialist] far less financially rewarding. Medical malpractice lawyers are cast as the marquee villains in the administration's war against what it regards as a litigious culture run amok. If there were a face in the bull's-eye in this political battle, it would be Mr. Smith's. He is not only a big-name medical malpractice lawyer, but he is also serving this year as the president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the principal advocacy and lobbying group for trial lawyers. And within conservative circles and inside the White House, the term "trial lawyer" is an epithet.

For years now, people have been told that greedy lawyers are what separates them from doctor-on-demand healthcare. In fact, millions are spent to deliver the message that a jury trial is the wrong prescription in a "free society," governed by "rule of law":

Last year, the Institute for Legal Reform, an affiliate of the Chamber of Commerce, and the American Medical Association, the physicians' advocacy group, spent a total of $33.8 million on lobbying, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks federal lobbying. The trial lawyers' association spent $2.9 million on federal lobbying, PoliticalMoneyLine reported.

That sure is a lot of money to bitch and whine about how poor you are. But hey, if only we could cease all this unnecessary litigation...well, actually, some health care providers HAVE managed to cut down on the "frivilous" lawsuits quite a bit:

Brian Tetrault was 44 when he was led into a dim county jail cell in upstate New York in 2001, charged with taking some skis and other items from his ex-wife's home. A former nuclear scientist who had struggled with Parkinson's disease, he began to die almost immediately, and state investigators would later discover why: The jail's medical director had cut off all but a few of the 32 pills he needed each day to quell his tremors.

Over the next 10 days, Mr. Tetrault slid into a stupor, soaked in his own sweat and urine. But he never saw the jail doctor again, and the nurses dismissed him as a faker. After his heart finally stopped, investigators said, correction officers at the Schenectady jail doctored records to make it appear he had been released before he died.

To date, neither the doctor nor the nurses have been disciplined, although the case was referred to a medical conduct board. The doctor was in the employ of P.H.S., or Prison Health Services, a shining example of the free market. While not their official slogan, one of their nurses, in a sworn deposition involving another death that could have been prevented with timely care, said the following:

"We save money because we skip the ambulance and bring them right to the morgue."

Because hey, after all, sick people (especially sick inmates) are just a drain on society, right?

That's what these people thought.