Wow, Sarah Palin said something else I agree with. Didn’t see that coming (insert winking emoticon here).

The toughest guy in the GOP continues to be the allegedly washed-up and irrelevant former Governor of Alaska who is using social media to get her message out while the RNC keeps sending me letters.

As Governor of Alaska, I learned a little bit about being a target for frivolous suits and complaints (Please, do I really need to footnote that?). I went my whole life without needing a lawyer on speed-dial, but all that changes when you become a target for opportunists and people with no scruples. Our nation’s health care providers have been the targets of similar opportunists for years, and they too have found themselves subjected to false, frivolous, and baseless claims. To quote a former president, “I feel your pain.”

So what can we do? First, we cannot have health care reform without tort reform. The two are intertwined. For example, one supposed justification for socialized medicine is the high cost of health care. As Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently noted, “If Mr. Obama is serious about lowering costs, he’ll need to reform the economic structures in medicine—especially programs like Medicare.” [1] Two examples of these “economic structures” are high malpractice insurance premiums foisted on physicians (and ultimately passed on to consumers as “high health care costs”) and the billions wasted on defensive medicine.

The tort reform question is one I’ve been asking and doing a little research on for a while now. Let me be clear: I don’t think this is the be all and end all solution to real health care reform. I am, however, continually amazed at how it’s left completely out of the discussion by those who scream the loudest about reining in the costs of health care. Gosh, if I was a cynic I’d say that the American Trial Lawyers Association held some kind of financial sway over members of the Democratic party.

But it’s a glorious summer Friday in Southern California, who wants to be cynical?

My contention has always been this: if we are to sincerely examine the outrageous costs of health care then why not look at anything that might be a contributing factor, no matter how big or small? Ignoring the cost of defensive medicine seems, at best, ignorant and, at worst, a completely sellout to the special interests the administration is always complaining about.

God help me, but I’m going to link to Andrew Sullivan. He’s put his Trig Troofer psychosis aside here for a moment to showcase a discussion of both sides of the tort reform issue.

Again, I’m not saying that the absence of a tort reform component in any of the proposals being tossed around now is what makes me think they suck. That’s a conversation that requires a significant investment in time and beer.

I only question why it isn’t part of any congressional discussion on health care reform at all.

This topic is like a pebble that keeps popping into my shoe on a long run. It’s very irritating. I know that I personally can’t take anything the administration says about health care seriously as long as this is ignored. President Obama did give a quick nod to the problem of cost of malpractice insurance in a speech to the AMA but he has a pattern of giving head fakes to whatever audience is in front of him then sending whatever he said straight down the memory hole.

Back to me being a cynic. If I truly was one would I keep yearning for a real debate on health care?

That would make me an eternal optimist or in need of observation for a head injury.