Letter: Our right to sue is the only thing that was capped

Friday, Aug. 9, 2002 | 4:47 a.m.

After the recent malpractice debacle across the valley and the historic signing of reform legislation to cap malpractice suits, I feel a little like Little Red Riding Hood. I went into the woods to play, got sick, and ran into the Big Bad Wolf.

But I'm not sure who the Big Bad Wolf really is.

Is it the doctors, lawyers, hospitals themselves, the whole medical industry, the politicians who move at a snail's pace for the above's every whim, or the media that really never informed us of the real wolves?

Now that we know one of the malpractice insurance companies is doctor-owned, we're supposed to believe that our great governor, local politicians and media saved us from this crisis. This crisis that had most of us scared to death, because doctors were charging doctors too much?

This was all about "caps," and we the public were secondary in this modern-day succumbing to the Big Bad Wolf.

I mean, if we don't cap attorney fees, doctors' rates, prescription costs, political fund-raising -- which have all skyrocketed -- why should we cap our only protection, the right to sue?

CHARLES L. CONTI