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For a long time, the only thing President Bush found to like about California was the reflectable glow of our governor. But lately, in speeches such as Wednesday's State of the Union address, he has alluded to one of our great legal innovations as just the thing to solve a big national problem. That problem is medical malpractice lawsuits, which we're told are a major culprit in soaring healthcare costs. Dr. Bush's prescription is a federal statute modeled on the 1975 California law that cracked down on malpractice claims. … According to studies at the Santa Monica think tank Rand Corp. and elsewhere, women are among the biggest losers. Jury awards to women in malpractice cases traditionally tilt toward noneconomic damages, so MICRA tends to deprive them of a greater share of their recoveries than men. Compounding the injustice, the most common medical injuries women suffer are harder to score in dollar terms. That's because many claims result from obstetric or gynecological procedures that may affect a patient's fertility or sexual lifestyle. "Medical errors in these cases can leave women perfectly able to work, but have a severe impact on their lives and sense of self," says Lucinda Finley, a law professor at the University at Buffalo in New York who studied 213 malpractice verdicts reached in California from 1992 to 2002.
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