health care policy

Republicans are playing a dangerous game in the health care debate.  They have declared that their strategy is to stand united to use procedural gimics to block the will of the (in their view) misguided majority in Congress and America.  Should this fail, which looks possible if not likely, everyone will know that Republicans at their strongest cannot stop the train of history, at least not until 2010.  That train carries not only health care reform, but cap and trade, gays in the military, judicial appointments, etc. This is serious.

The safer strategy is to trade one or two Republican votes in the Senate for real influence on the outcome.  Democrats are willing to compromise big -- witness the Stupak amendment.  Democrats would trade the public option for Olympia Snowe's vote. 

This means that "new ideas" Republicans should think what they should ask for, things like cutting insurance regulations, preserving choice and competition, and fixing the malpractice mess.  Simply capping malpractice awards is not the answer -- it goes against bedrock principles of accountability.

Simple best practices checklists could eliminate most malpractice awards.  This is how airlines reduced pilot error to nearly zero.  Engineers have professional standards boards.  Republicans should not oppose national best practices committees.  The "standing between you and your doctor" is phoney.  But we could insist that following best practices is protection against lawsuits.