To follow up on Matt‘s post about Ramesh Ponnuru‘s complaints that we (among others) won’t review a book that we haven’t been sent review copies for, I just did a search on a book I quite like: The Medical Malpractice Myth, by Tom Baker. Baker is a law professor at the University of Connecticut, and one of the nation’s foremost authorities on insurance issues. His book calmly and methodically deconstructs the hysteria over malpractice, showing, quite convincingly, that the premiums are related to the boom/bust cycle of the insurance industry, the lawsuits generally have merit, and malpractice is exponentially more prevalent than malpractice lawsuits. It does not sell itself on the strength of Ann Coulter or Ward Churchill‘s blurb, and it’s title does not accuse ofe on America’s two major parties of being pro-death. Baker did send out review copies, and even gave a talk on the book at the American Enterprise Institute, the premier conservative think tank. And yet, and yet, not a single conservative outlet has considered his argument. This even though tort reform is a continual obsession of rightwing politicians, medical malpractice kills around 100,000 Americans each year, and the two together costs countless billions in lost productivity, reparative surgery, and legal expenses.