Back when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it seemed pretty clear that courts would be ill-equipped to handle the expected flood of lawsuits.

So something called the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, better known as the EEOC, was created.

The agency’s employees would be experts in discrimination. “Referees” would hear allegations that an employee was mistreated on the basis of race, religion, gender or national origin in less-than-formal courtroom settings with less-than-formal rules of evidence. Often, there would be no attorneys present.

This “administrative law” system continues today. Referees weigh the information provided and issue letters summarizing their findings.

Only with an EEOC letter in hand can a plaintiff head to court to seek money damages. And if such a letter is favorable to a plaintiff, an employer is well-advised to settle up before a judge and jury hear the case.

The EEOC system is not perfect. But it has worked well — extremely well — for workers and for employers. Well north of 95 percent of employment claims have been resolved short of the courtroom.

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians’ justice system has full-fledged tribal courts. It also has a job description for a person known as “peacemaker.” Many times, that’s all people need.

Last week President Obama said he wasn’t interested in federal laws restraining malpractice suits against doctors and other health-care providers. That put him, quite naturally, at great odds with the American Medical Association, who has taken the position for years that “frivolous” cases make the jobs of physicians more difficult, more time-consuming, more frustrating for patients and more expensive.

It seems obvious that something akin to a federal EEOC for people aggrieved about medical care could be an improvement.

Legislatively, Mississippi has acted strongly against what Gov. Haley Barbour calls “lawsuit abuse.” But enactments earlier this decade did only two things in the medical arena: They made it more difficult to initiate a case by imposing hurdles for plaintiffs to clear and they capped compensatory damages at $500,000.

The problem with this approach is that it throws out the baby with the bath water.

No physician in Mississippi can say that there’s no such thing as medical practice. It does occur.

Yet in Mississippi people with legitimate cases are as strongly dissuaded from making claims as those with specious claims. It’s illogical to think that medical care will improve — which should be the state’s policy goal — in a legal environment in which no provider can be called to answer.

It’s perfectly obvious that a special medical court — staffed with experts along the EEOC model — would be an improvement.

So why don’t we have one?

Two reasons.

First is that too few people understand what medical malpractice is, so a lot of people think a medical review court would give them short shrift.

Legally, malpractice means, in the majority of cases, that a provider didn’t do something that should have been done or did something that shouldn’t have been done that has a more or less permanent result. A bad effect is not malpractice. Even a physical injury to a patient is not malpractice unless it resulted from negligence, which is defined as a departure from what an ordinary, reasonable member of the medical community would do in the same situation.

Second, and more persuasive with Congress, is that “med-mal” is a big business — and this will hurt some feelings — where everybody makes money. Insurance companies make money by charging rates based on what they claim is an abnormal risk. Hospitals, clinics and doctors make money by performing “defensive” tests to use in court much more than in treating the sick or injured. Defense attorneys make money by dragging out cases where plaintiffs have obvious claims that should be settled. Plaintiffs’ attorneys make money through contingency fees that pay them 40 percent of anything they collect for clients, plus expenses.

Nonbelievers should imagine what it would be like if the EEOC not been created to expedite employment claims and, instead a full-fledged and highly profitable industry had grown up around discrimination claims. It would be awfully hard, if not impossible, to back up today and create an administrative process that takes a no muss, no fuss approach to resolving disputes.

The world of medical malpractice needs a “peacemaker.”

It could be Obama.

But too many of his supporters and too many of his political opponents’ supporters have too much at stake for that to happen.

And the losers are the clients or patients, who keep paying for it all.