Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and John Kerry (D-MA) talked about the process of health care reform on Sunday :

STEPHANOPOULOS: These insurance reforms, you can't be denied health care if you're sick. You can't get thrown out if you're sick. A lot of Democrats, Republicans say that maybe we should have this individual mandate, to require people to buy insurance, to couple that with reforms. Bill Bradley points out today, I think it was in The New York Times, that, you know, maybe they should include some malpractice reform as well. Are they -- those three things the building blocks of a deal? HATCH: Yes, they really are. You know, Democrats have been unwilling to take on the personal injury lawyers. And look, there are cases that really deserve huge rewards, huge judgments. We've got to find some way of getting rid of the frivolous cases, and most of them are. Most of them are brought... KERRY: And that's doable, most definitely. HATCH: Yes, and that's doable. Most of them are brought to -- you know, to get the defense costs. They know that once they bring them, the insurance companies are going to have to pay their defense costs rather than take a chance at a runaway jury. But it's not just that. It's the other elements you've been talking about too. Those are three very important...

Let's just wait one minute here. Bill Bradley? Although he has a reputation as a liberal's liberal, Bradley has never met a tax cut he didn't like. And when he starts talking about malpractice reform in exchange for healthcare reform, what he's talking about once again is ordinary people giving up another degree of security and protection against powerful forces to meet some politician's ideal of centrist compromise.

When approximately five percent of all doctors are responsible for 95% of all medical malpractice, how is that a legal problem? I'll accept limitations on malpractice awards when we have a national health care system that pays for every service someone needs to deal with with the outcome of bad medicine. Until then, I'll keep my torts, thank you.