Continuing the anti-Doyle crusade

Wisconsin's biggest newspaper, in its ongoing effort to make Gov. Jim Doyle look bad no matter what he does, gives its top front page headline today to Doyle's veto of a bill to allow health care providers to withhold information on mistakes they make in treating patients.

The Journal Sentinel spin: Doyle sides with the trial lawyers.

The headline could as easily have said, "Doyle veto a victory for patients" or "Doyle veto a victory for malpractice victims" or even "Doyle veto a victory over hospital secrecy."

The actual headline: "Doyle veto a win for trial lawyers."

The story is a little complicated, but this might help you figure it out:

The governor vetoed a bill that would have prevented lawyers from subpoenaing information on health care quality when suing hospitals, nursing homes and other health care providers.

The Wisconsin Hospital Association, which helped write the bill, said it was needed to encourage hospitals to collect and analyze information on mistakes and other so-called adverse events.

I seem to recall the newspaper speaking out against special interests being allowed to write their own bills, but apparently there are exceptions.

The story operates on two assumptions: Jim Doyle bad. Trial lawyers worse.

Here's the thing. Those trial lawyers, whom the right wing likes to demonize, actual are working for victims -- people who were injured or damaged, perhaps seriously, perhaps for life -- by health care providers.

When the story says the bill "would have prevented lawyers from subpoenaing information," what it should say is that it would have prevented victims from getting information.

Lawyers work for clients. It is the clients, the victims, who have the tables tilted against them every time the state passes another law to rein in those nasty trial lawyers.

Back to the story:

Under the bill, a patient still would have been able to get his or her medical records. But the bill would have prevented someone harmed by a medication error from getting internal documents showing how widespread the problem was at a hospital or on the hospital's efforts to prevent the errors.

"What is there to hide?" said Bremer Muggily, the trial lawyer. "If the program really is to improve the quality of care, then there should be transparency."

In recent years, the so-called quality movement in health care has gained momentum, partly in response to pressure from the federal government and employers.

So far, information on those initiatives has been subpoenaed only once in a malpractice lawsuit in Wisconsin.

But Brenton contended that a few more instances could slow the push by hospitals to improve quality.

"We should err on the side of protecting those activities from being mined by plaintiff attorneys," he said.

Once again, using trial lawyers as bogeymen, legislators are moving to solve a non-problem. Those records have been subpoenaed once in the history of Wisconsin. That hardly suggests widespread abuse or problems.

Why should we "err on the side of protecting" [those records]?

Why not, for a change, err on the side of protecting patients who may have been injured or damaged by the care they received?

The contest is not lawyers vs. hospitals. It is victims vs. health care providers.

And that should make it a whole different ball game. In this case, the newspaper has lined up against the victims that Doyle and Atty. Gen. Peg Lautenschlager, who had urged Doyle to veto the legislation, want to protect. The AG said the bill would "grant the broad authority to shield evidence of misconduct, malpractice and incompetence from the public."

CORY LIEBMANN: Welcome to Skull and Bones General Hospital.

SETH ZLOTOCHA: Journal-Sentinel peddles GOP spin.

RICK ESENBERG: A veto on Tuesday?