In Praise of Common Sense

As well-informed Sloppists undoubtedly know, President Obama is traveling the country promoting ideas for healthcare reform.  A big story yesterday concerned the fact that Obama has proposed malpractice reform as part of the overall package.  This is something that doctors' groups have wanted for a long time, but it's been a stumbling block in previous attempts to craft legislation because of resistance from Democratic lawmakers (not least because trial lawyers--major Democratic donors--are against tort reform).  Not surprisingly, these groups are leery of malpractice reform.

It's things like this that drive the Solipsist batty.  From the way some people react, you'd think Obama was proposing that doctors be allowed to perform appendectomies under the influence of cocaine and highballs while texting.  He's not.  He's basically proposing that, as long as doctors follow their own professional guidelines when treating patients, they not be held liable for every unforeseen negative event that could possibly occur during a patient's treatment.  The theory is that this would prevent doctors from practicing "defensive" medicine, performing all manner of unnecessary tests just in case something goes wrong so that they can say that didn't overlook anything.  Said unnecessary tests add billions of dollars to the healthcare budget.  Sounds logical to us.  (And remember, this is coming from a liberal San Francisco Bay Area egghead type.)

Furthermore, fear of lawsuits can prevent doctors from honestly examining why something goes wrong.  There is an advocacy group known as the "Sorry Works!" Coalition.  Their creed is that, if and when mistakes occur, doctors should simply go to their patients and/or their loved ones, make a sincere apology, and offer whatever assistance they can to figure out where things went wrong.  If compensation is appropriate, it is offered swiftly and non-confrontationally.  Hospitals that have adopted this policy find that families in general are satisfied with and appreciative of these apologies, and even if the hospitals end up paying compensation, the process is less acrimonious, and the settlements smaller than they would be following jury trials.

In a way, this goes back to our post of June 14.  Then, we bemoaned the fanaticism of the right wing in their attacks on President Obama and liberalism in general.  But the healthcare issue has its rabid (though probably not as psychotic) partisans on both sides of the agenda, too.  Steadfast adherence to knee-jerk responses will never solve major problems; indeed, it only makes the problems worse.  It's past time to embrace common-sense approaches to seemingly intractable issues.  It's possible the problems are not as intractable as we've been led to believe.