Dems to Doctors: Drop Dead (from malpractice insurance costs)

Dr. DB at DB’s Medical Rants points to this Opinion Journal article today about how Democrats are going to “walk the plank again” for their trial lawyer overlords and block a vote on a medical malpractice reform (the “Patients First” bill).

Democrats have long made the Senate the graveyard of any and all legal reform. The news is that they're having a harder time getting away with it. The scandal of asbestos litigation has forced them at least to bargain on that issue, while momentum is also building to limit class-action suits. It says something about Tom Daschle's devotion to the trial bar that he's willing to ask his Members to walk the plank even on medical liability, just as voters are discovering the damage it is doing to health care across the country.

Democrats (such as former ambulance chaser John Edwards) have tried to pin soaring malpractice costs on the insurance companies, but doctors (like DB) simply aren’t buying it.

4 p.m. update from the Washington Post: Democrats Block White House-Supported Malpractice Bill