You miss one key difference: who pays.
All comments objecting to a payout for the victims refer to who is paying. You and your buddy conveniently use the term “the government” when talking about negligence, but conveniently overlook the fact that “the government” gets all of its funds from the taxpayers.
The question remains, why should the taxpayer fork over huge settlements when it was individual employees of “the government” who were negligent? In your world, John Doe walks down the sidewalk that “the government” just repaired. He trips over an uneven surface and falls and hurts his hand. He should then be able to knock on his neighbor’s door and demand payment because of what the construction crew did wrong...simply because it was a government contract. This makes no sense, and, as the author points out, is another form of socialism (redistribution of funds). This is why so many Leftists OPPOSE tort reform. They see it mainly as taking money from corporations and insurance companies and redistributing it to [whomever — doesn’t matter whom, just take it from those who have it.]
You are equivocating 1. insurance companies trying to avoid payouts on behalf of their customers who are sued, and 2. legitimate lawsuits against negligent individuals and companies to compensate those they have harmed, to 3. class-action lawsuits against unnamed groups of civil servants, to be paid by the taxpayer.
There is no legitimate analogy between 1 and 2 and 3.
Here is what you are missing: Who pays when the injured party is unable to pay on his own? The same state who should have been held liable in the first place.