The Social Contract

Matt Steinglass is open to tort reform, with a big caveat:

I'm instinctively sympathetic to this idea in part because I come from a family of doctors and have heard complaints about crazy malpractice suits since I was 12, and in part because I've lived in Europe, where people think American tort law is insane. But part of the reason why Europeans accept restrictions on their ability to sue doctors for malpractice is that they have guaranteed health insurance. It's part of the social contract: doctors accept limited salaries in exchange for limited liability; patients accept that they cannot sue doctors for millions of dollars in exchange for a guarantee of access to decent health care.