POLITICS AS USUAL - AT 10:01 A.M. ET:  You'd think, with all their yapping about health-care reform, that the administration's soldiers would have thought out all the details by now, or even all the generalities.  Apparently, the truth is that it's improvise-as-you go, as Fox News reports:

The Obama administration is willing to consider reforms that could help protect doctors from lawsuits in a bid to win support for a comprehensive health care overhaul from doctors and Senate Republicans.

President Obama and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told lawmakers in a private meeting they would accept some malpractice liability reform if it means progress on health care reform, senior White House officials told FOX News.

What do they mean by "accept some malpractice liability reform"?  That should be a central theme of any health plan.  There are, of course, legitimate malpractice suits, but a troubling number are distorted, based on exaggerated claims, or even on junk science.  The effect is to discourage physicians, drive malpractice insurance through the roof, which raises medical costs dramatically, and force doctors to abandon certain specialties or areas of the country.  There are, for example, whole counties with no obstetricians.

One lawyer who specialized in medical malpractice suits is a certain John Edwards, late of presidential campaigns.

Any health plan must be attractive to physicians.  One of the great problems of some of the nationalized health systems of other countries is that they discourage people from entering medicine, producing immediate doctor shortages.  This in turn leads to those now-famous waiting lists, and a breakdown of the system.

One top Obama adviser told FOX News the White House understands Democrats may object to malpractice reforms, but that a health care deal requires movement on all sides and if doctor and GOP buy-in can be achieved this way, Obama will not hesitate to pursue it.

Great way to plan something that deals with life-and-death issues.  Just Washington politics.  Who needs talk about cutting-edge drugs or advanced surgery?  Such bores.

June 15, 2009