Having protected corporations from the consequences of their fraudulent actions by "reforming" class action lawsuits, the administration now hopes to protect incompetent doctors from the consequences of their malpractice. The administration's relentless drive to insulate businesses and businessmen from responsibility, at the expense of their injured victims, is difficult to reconcile with Republican rhetoric about personal responsibility and state's rights. Are victims of careless doctors responsible for the negligently-inflicted disabilities they may be forced to endure for a lifetime? Shouldn't states make their own decisions whether, and to what extent, to cap the damages that juries award to compensate those victims?

Are trial lawyers the problem? Or are high insurance rates that doctors pay the result of a medical profession that does too little to prevent dangerously incompetent doctors from treating patients? Or the result of price gouging by insurance companies?

Are insurance rates the only problem? Does the Bush administration care a whit about the victims of careless doctors?

"There is a strong consensus among people who have really studied the issue that caps on damages would tend to keep costs down and make liability insurance more affordable for doctors," [Dr. William M. Sage, a physician and a law professor at Columbia University] said. "And there is a universal consensus that caps would do absolutely nothing to reduce medical errors or to compensate injured patients. If anything, caps on damages would make those problems worse."