By Shannon Brownlee I’m out here visiting family in Olympia, Washington, where getting an Internet connection involves sitting in the doorway so I can see the screen of my computer and sticking my phone out on the porch so it can get its measly two bars of connectivity to hook me up by broadband. I'm also reading The Olympian, which ran a story yesterday on the front of the business section, “Drug price increases draw attention from lawmakers.” State and federal lawmakers who are concerned about the cost of health care are considering legislation that would control drug prices. Oh, now they're worried about rising drug costs. Maybe Congress should have thought of that when it enacted Medicare Part D and constrained Medicare’s ability to negotiate prices. But the really interesting legislation in this state involves the definition of “informed consent.” Whenever a patient undergoes a medical procedure – a colonoscopy, say, or knee replacement surgery – she signs a document that is supposed to certify that she understands the potential risks and benefits of the procedure or test. Informed consent is simultaneously supposed to ensure that patients understand what they’re getting into and protect physicians from malpractice suits should something go wrong. In reality, informed consent often does neither. You’ve probably signed an informed consent document. Did you understand all that legal and medical jargon? Neither do most patients. What’s more, a signature on an informed consent document doesn’t always protect the doctor if the patient sues and the case goes to court.
