Post by CMF Newsman on Apr 12, 2007 10:10:58 GMT -5
The president and Congress have been falling over themselves to pledge better care for our wounded veterans in the wake of the scandal over "squalid" conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center that included mold, rats, cockroaches, rotting walls and callous treatment of patients. The president has empanelled the perfunctory "blue-ribbon commission." The hospital walls have literally been whitewashed, so politicians can use them again as backdrops for speeches about "nothing being too good" for our troops. Yet no one is talking about the one thing that soldiers and sailors are most desperately lacking: They don't need another spit and polish; they need lawyers.
For decades, our military members have been barred from suing for medical malpractice and other forms of negligence by the government. Whether it is a military doctor cutting off the wrong leg or a military gasoline station cutting a brake line, military personnel are not allowed to seek legal relief as other citizens can. The result is that they are victims of grotesque forms of negligence that have not been widely seen in the civilian world for more than a hundred years. In the civilian system, the threat of lawsuit serves a critical deterrence of negligence by the government, companies and others. A rational actor will avoid liability costs by taking measures to minimize accidents.
Most Americans do not know that we deny our servicemembers the basic right to sue when they are injured by negligence. They live in a type of tort-free zone where their injuries are subject to relatively minor levels of compensation. With the silent approval of Congress, we have created a system of discount citizens who become easy fodder for incompetent or even criminal actors. Indeed, killing a soldier on an operating table or in a military recreation area is a virtual bargain at a fraction of the cost of a full-value citizen.
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