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As expected, and despite past assurances to the contrary, the Governor signed the Med Mal bill today. See one of the myriad stories here.

In the interest of full disclosure of how I feel about the bill, um, law, my quote in the article was:

"This legislation is a matter of politics trumping policy and poll results winning out over public interest."

Since this was one of the first items that I discussed on this blog, I won't get into it again fully here. I just have to repeat though that I think that the people of this state, primarily in southern Illinois, are being manipulated as political pawns in a high stakes game being launched by corporate concerns. Case in point, look at this paragraph from the Sun-Times article:

'The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform cheered Thursday's bill signing as "a much-needed step in the right direction." That group also plans to launch a statewide advertising campaign pitching the need for additional reforms, insisting lawsuit abuse creates a hostile business climate that puts Illinois' jobs at risk. '

Now who the hell thinks that the U.S. Chamber is losing any sleep over health care availability for Illinoisans? Not me. This isn't the chamber made up of your local Ace Hardware or Ann's Travel Agency, this is the Altria's and Exxon's of the world who don't want people messing with their bottom line regardless of the validity of the claim. This was a Doc Maarten boot in the door that is going to be used to next try to impose limitations on average citizens being able to go after corporate wrongdoing.

Personally, I think that frivolous lawsuits hurt everybody. But these folks want to make it as hard as possible to bring even legitimate claims. Average citizens are already at a tremendous disadvantage when it comes to trying to seek justice from large corporate wrongdoers. The U.S. Chamber wants to further tilt the playing field.

I want to give credit where credit is due. They did a great job of P.R. in creating and selling this issue to the masses. Once they did that, the polling numbers couldn't help but follow. At that point, the leaders were boxed in. It will be interesting indeed to see what happens when either the bill gets struck down or the bill stays intact and premiums still don't plummet or when the public reads about the first egregious case of medical wrongdoing that cripples an innocent patient who is then awarded a verdict that is a fraction of what common sense or decency dictates.

Call it non-economic damages, pain and suffering, or even punitive damages. Certain cases so offend the conscience that they deserve an eye-opening award. May God look out so that nobody that we care about becomes that victim.

Scorecard: Big Business 1; Illinois victims 0.