Health Courts: snobby things for jury haters

Common Good, the corporate tort reform outfit founded by lawyer/author Philip Howard, clearly wasn't thinking when it scheduled today's public forum on its proposed "health courts." Even though I'm always desperate for a good blog item, not even the promise of free food could persuade me to leave the election returns/Rumsfeld resignation news to sit through another one of these dreary "third way" lectures about how we ought to abolish the medical malpractice system and its juries, and hand complaints over to "experts" to handle--all in the interest of patient safety, of course.

But in case you're interested, you can watch the webcast here. And if you really want to know what I think about health courts, you can read my online debate about it with Howard here.

Incidentally, why is it that "third way" proposals always require progressives to move right rather than conservatives moving left?