The Sacramento Bee, "Malpractice isn't all that ails health care"

The Bush administration has embraced a 28-year-old California malpractice insurance law as the cure for an upward spike in malpractice premiums happening in other states. The law undoubtedly has helped keep malpractice premiums down in the state since it was enacted. For other state legislators looking for a solution, it is a reasonable starting point for the discussion. But if Bush looks to make something like this the law of all the land, this is merely a bandage on a patient -- the health care system -- that's badly bleeding.

If there is to be a federal debate over malpractice insurance, it should be part of a broader conversation over reducing errors in medicine, from adverse drug reactions killing hospital patients to treatment disputes that don't get aired before independent experts. That, however, doesn't seem to be the idea.