We at Common Cause fully support the new measure to force physicians to fully disclose medical malpractice settlements. We look no further than to the comments issued by California Medical Association president John Whitelaw: "Disclosure of settlements and complaints is not the key to weeding out bad doctors," he said. In fact, "There is no hard evidence that shows it has anything to do with quality of care." Many of the best physicians take the most difficult cases and "inevitably, some of those cases result in less-than-optimal outcomes that prompt lawsuits." (Robeznieks, 2002)

In fact, Dr. Whitelaw also predicted that disclosing settlement information may make doctors less apt to settle, and this could tie up the courts and also drive up insurance fees.

Finally, instead of spending time prosecuting alternative practitioners or physicians guilty of low-level infractions, Whitelaw recommended that the highest priority be given to cases where patient harm occurred.

Ralph Nader has led the way for Americans and citizens of the world to become more conscious of consumers' rights. Americans have a right not to be subordinated to the powers of corporations, but this ri

For that reason, health care should remain not-for-profit in America. Hand in hand with that is the fact that the full disclosure laws are incorrect. We cannot and should not put in the hands of laymen the ability to make decisions about their health care based on information they cannot possible understand or link to their actual health situation correctly.

However, this for-profit status, though essential, cannot come at any cost. For instance, the Physician Disclosure laws are wrong. The American Medical Association more than adequately certifies and controls doctors in America. Individual laymen are neither qualified nor situated to make independent decisions of a doctor's competence based solely on medical malpractice settlement information that may be entirely spurious data.

We must leave the American Medical Association to do what it does best: decide who is qualified to treat patients. For instance, do Americans have the right to information about the track record of nuclear engineers, such that they have the power to force them to leave their post if they were accused of a mistake which later was settled? Of course not.

Patients cannot extrapolate from a medical malpractice settlement to discover if their doctor is unskilled. That is the American Medical Association's job, and they are the sole arbiters on these matters because they are experts - they are properly vested with the authority and responsibility to ensure that bad doctors do not infiltrate their ranks as they will all suffer.

Without a profit motive, human

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