Another Sad Week in MedMal Crisis Land: Our city lost another physician to the medical malpractice insurance crisis last week. This one was a surgeon. His malpractice premiums increased by $100,000 a year, from $150,000 to $250,000. That left nothing for him to live on, so he closed his practice. He's going to be doing locum tenens work. I'm going to miss him. He was arrogant, but he was a good surgeon.

And yet again, the Senate failed to pass tort reform for medical malpractice cases. Said one senator who opposes caps on non-economic damages:

'I've never seen such special-interest legislation,' said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont. 'Instead of going about doing the people's business, we seem to be going about the political action committees' business, and that's why, of course, nothing is getting done.'

Of course, the same could be said about the motivation behind the opponents of the legislation. Opponents like Senator Leahy.