From the article: "In fact, 'robotic surgery has been linked to many serious injuries and severe complications, including death.'"
Same thing goes for surgeons, but a robot has two qualities that your run of the mill surgeon doesn't: It is consistent in its results (you can end up in the hands of a drunken surgeon, someone who just lost a familiar, or it just happens to have a bad day), and it is cheaper (in the long run).
If a generation of robots have some problem or make some mistakes, next generation will improve on it, for all of the units. For a doctor, each one is different and have its own particular weaknesses, most of them having to do with emotional stuff, and they are already information overloaded, so no much room for improvement.
Also, rich people will be able to select what doctor treats them, but for the rest of the population that is not possible. The malpractice results of this are usually played down, but we all have heard about medical mistakes from friends and family.
And if you go out of the US, in poor countries "bad" but affordable care from robots is superior to "good" but inaccessible medicine from doctors.
Automation is coming to all other aspects of life, shedding jobs at its wake. I don't see why doctors need to be protected from that, as long as automation brings some benefits to society.