This AP story (at the Daily Oklahoman site) expains that Gov. Brad Henry (D-Shawnee) has just signed "tort reform legislation ... that he said will keep medical malpractice rates affordable and improve access to quality health care." The medical and insurance industries have been hot for this legislation, because they say runaway jury awards have shot malpractice rates through the roof.

The Republicans, naturally, are unhappy with the bill because it doesn't limit lawsuits enough. They want everyone subject to these restrictions, including eliminating the awarding of attorney's fees to plaintiffs who prevail, reduced interest payments for liability cases, "expert certification" of merit before filing a lawsuit (and you can guess what industry trains and certifies these experts), and a $300,000 cap on "non-economic" damages in medical liability cases "involving" emergency care and pregnancy.

So guess what the new Time cover story says?

Critics say soaring premiums are less the result of lawsuits than of insurers rushing to make up for their losses in underpriced premiums and poorly performing investments. An independent study by Weiss Ratings to be released this week shows that states with caps on malpractice damages have not enjoyed much relief in malpractice-insurance premiums but have instead seen insurers shore up profits. Sosenko's anger at the insurers moved him to join several hundred other Illinois physicians at a rally in the state capital earlier this year, calling on legislators to freeze malpractice premiums for six months and investigate the industry's pricing practices. "These companies pretty much have a free hand to do what they want," he says.

However, physicians themselves deserve at least part of the blame. "Doctors," says Dr. John Walsh, 46, one of Sosenko's partners, "haven't sold themselves as a self-policing group." The vast majority of conscientious physicians have been forced to subsidize the higher insurance costs of a few incompetents. Consider this: between September 1990 and March 2003, just 5% of the doctors who have made medical malpractice payments accounted for a third of all the money paid out, according to the Federal Government's National Practitioner Data Bank.

Yup, that's right: studies show caps don't reduce malpractice payments, the whole point of this "crisis." It's incompetent doctors staying in practice and insurers passing their losses in lots of areas (especially the stock market) on to doctors. So who pays for that? Their victims, of course.

Someone please tell me how making sure insurance companies never have to absorb their own risks, and how keeping bad doctors in the system, will "improve access to quality health care." Then someone please explain it to Gov. Henry.