Let’s say you’ve been injured by a doctor. Who do you want deciding what happens? Do you want to be able to go to court, or do you want your claim considered by a “health care tribunal”?

The people in the picture to the right are not a health care tribunal. They’re a random group that probably look like what a health care tribunal would look like. Who are they? How did they get there? Do they have any relationships with health care providers? Or plaintiffs’ lawyers? Or defense lawyers?

They look very nice, and they certainly mean well. They’ve probably studied the papers in front of them very carefully. They have a computer, which is good. And they’ve got a couple bottles of water or soda to drink from – but not too much. None of this means they should replace judges and juries.

H.R. 2787 would send federal money to states to help them set up “health care tribunals.” (It doesn’t say how much.)

Congress is looking at dozens of ways of tweaking the health care system. We should be very careful about walking away from the our legal tradition, which gives injured people the right to sue for damages. There are certainly excessive claims in health care litigation, and there might be some tweaks to that system in order. But I sure don’t want the nice people on a “tribunal” deciding what is supposed to be decided by a judge or jury after a fair and impartial trial. Open to convincing, in the comments . . .

Here’s the current vote on H.R. 2787. Click to vote, comment, learn more, or edit the wiki article about the bill.