Forgotten faces.

The White House has a plan to "fix" medical-malpractice insurance premiums--by helping the insurance industry at the expense of injured patients. Meanwhile, the American Medical Association (AMA), backed by the Bush administration, is encouraging systematic, state-by-state doctor strikes--harming the very patients the doctors have pledged to treat.

President Bush met with AMA members last July and "vowed to make medical-malpractice revisions a top legislative priority," according to the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Donald Palmisano, AMA president-elect, said Bush told the doctors, "You need to get out the grass roots."

Since that closed-door session, doctors have been rallying and striking in several states, including Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Jersey, Ohio, and West Virginia. And Bush has delivered for the doctors: While purporting to champion the best interests of patients, he declared war on them in his January State of the Union address by targeting their lawyers.

"We must address one of the prime causes of higher [health-care] costs--the constant threat that physicians and hospitals will be unfairly sued," Bush said. "No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit--and I urge the Congress to pass medical-liability reform."

He told lawmakers and the public that "instead of bureaucrats and trial lawyers and HMOs, we must put doctors and nurses and patients back in charge of American medicine."

But what happens when the patients who are supposed to be "in charge" are harmed by medical negligence? What happens when they want juries to hear their cases and make decisions based on the facts, without being impeded by a one-size-fits-all "remedy" imposed by the federal government?

Until now, the faces and voices of injured patients have been absent from this debate. Now, patients are ready and willing to contest the president's plan--one that ensures that grievously injured people will not have enough money to pay for the treatment they need to rebuild their lives.

Until now, the media have pitted doctors against lawyers, all too often neglecting not only the insurance industry's role in creating the current insurance "crisis," but also the patients who have been injured by medical negligence. Only lately have some reporters discovered the true victims of America's health-care crisis.

One woman's story

Linda McDougal is the courageous Wisconsin woman who came forward to challenge Bush's plan after she was the victim of medical negligence. McDougal had an unnecessary double mastectomy because a pathologist confused her biopsy results with those of another woman.

The president's plan calls for a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages--but all McDougal has is noneconomic damages. Her insurance company covered her medical expenses, and her employer paid her salary while she was out of work. Her net economic loss is zero.

In an interview with People magazine last month, McDougal said, "I challenge President Bush to ask his wife or his mother or his daughters, if this happened to them, would $250,000 be enough?"

What about California?

Bush, the AMA, and others advocating medical malpractice "reform" say they want to model their legislative plan on a California law that has one of the most restrictive damages caps in the country. The Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act