As someone who'd been a skeptic of "lawsuits are killing us!" arguments, I actually thought the most convincing explanation of the many that were offered up aft

As someone who'd been a skeptic of "lawsuits are killing us!" arguments, I actually thought the most convincing explanation of the many that were offered up after that SSC post is that uncertainty bred by too little (or too inconsistently enforced) regulation that leaves too much of enforcing good behavior up to litigation is the biggest driver of the problem. It neatly explains why the US suffers from it far worse than other OECD states, I'd say—uncertain, relatively weak regulatory environment, easy lawsuits. The uncertainty encourages, at both the personal and institutional levels, extreme risk avoidance (CYA, if not actually risk reduction) throughout private industry and government, adding a percentage to costs at every stage of any project while also slowing things down (so, more costs there too) and killing innumerable potentially-cost-saving innovations in process before they can even be attempted.