Treat punative damages as a criminal offense by requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt, then add a 3 strike penalty so that after the 3rd punative damage award the doctor is barred from practicing. It’s always been claimed that only a small percentage of the doctors produce the majority of the claims, so lets get rid of them.

Of course, you might have to go to Canada or Mexico to give birth or have surgery, but that is better than what we have now?

When it’s a crapshoot, with the underlying facts having little to no effect on the outcome, you should always settle large cases.

How then do we approach the causation issue with respect to adverse medical outcomes? Was it just an instance of God enforcing some actuarial rate? Or did it result from deliberate action or incompetent action? My sense is that the trial process itself under weighs the meanness of God (the randomness of nature for non-deists.) I would replace our trials with an adverse outcome insurance mechanism funded directly in advance by by patients. Lottery payouts go to those who purchased winning tickets in advance of the drawing. We don’t ask people if they would have purchased a winning ticket given the opportunity.

And why is emotion in the form of “compassion” desirable in proceedings that are supposed to involve objective fact finding?

If you do away with the jury system, the decision will rest solely with the lawyers, who are equally unprepared to understand complex issues, but who also are completely devoid of the said emotion. I don’t see the profit in exchanging a jury of lay people with a bench of judges.

Surely, some other reform must be called for?