Appellate courts provide checks on jury verdicts

To the editor:

I hear rumblings of another government blunder. President Bush has decided to look into the insurance companies' complaints that we, the insured, are the cause of the out-of-control cost of health care.

Doctors have gone on strike to protest the high cost of malpractice insurance. Why didn't Bush do with them as Ronald Reagan did with the airline pilots and order them back to work or replace them?

This administration is entertaining the idea of a cap on punitive damages in medical malpractice lawsuits. This reeks of special-interest insurance-company money. Would it not be logical to assume that if the government is going to limit the dollar amount of damages that it would also have to limit the amount insurance companies charge for coverage? Remember, the world's worst doctor is going to operate on someone tomorrow.

What's being missed in the reporting of these huge multimillion-dollar punitive-damage suits is follow-up reporting on the appellate-court rulings. We already have a system to correct the injustices handed down by out-of-control juries. It would be helpful if the media reported these appellate decisions with the same fervor they report the original verdict.

Appellate courts are the checks-and-balances side of lawsuits. They decide what is reasonable and customary. The Founding Fathers solved a foreseeable problem some 227 years ago. I don't think even President Bush can improve on it.

DOUGLAS FLANNERY

Whitewater