[Porsche-O-Phile]

Agree. And there's precedent for this. Google "General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994". Basically GA (General Aviation) manufacturing in the United States had been killed due to legal liability (some idiot gets into his airplane drunk and flies it into a school, the manufacturer gets sued simply because they built the airplane and they have a perception of having deep pockets, stuff like that). The GARA instituted liability limits and since then GA manufacturing has come back to life. Airplanes that wouldnt have ever existed like the Cirrus SR-22 got designed and built. It saved the industry.

There's a good lesson here - if you limit liability in a sensible way, business thrives. Jobs get created. Innovation happens. Of course tort lawyers don't like that. They like being able to fling schite at the wall to see what sticks (and if anything does, they get 20%). The problem is most lawmakers are lawyers, writing laws to benefit other lawyers, so it's difficult if not impossible to get a real discussion going in this country about tort reform.

It's doubly complicated when we're talking about medical malpractice and liability. It's easy to talk about tort reform as an abstract concept - most people find it a lot harder to talk about when they're talking about their loved one who might die in hospital. When patients die (and they do sometimes) there's a conditioned reaction to want to blame someone - especially in America. "Someone died! I'm gonna' SUE someone!" So you get what we've got - unnecessary (or marginally necessary) procedures for everything, hours and hours spent documenting and covering one's arse instead of providing care, etc.

The ONLY meaningful recommendation to reduce health care costs in America was conveniently omitted from Obamacare - wonder why? Who wrote it? (Answer - lobbyists, most of whom are current or former lawyers). Who passed it? (Answer - Congress, most of whose members are current or former lawyers). Who signed it? (Answer - Obama, a lawyer by training).

America - 5% of the world's population, 60% of the world's lawyers. There's the answer to a lot of our problems.