Posted on 07/26/2002 5:44:28 AM PDT by Lee'sGhost
Bush attacks big awards
President makes case on turf of potential foe while speaking at a fund-raiser for GOP Senate hopeful Elizabeth Dole.
By ROB CHRISTENSEN AND JOHN WAGNER, Staff Writers
HIGH POINT - President Bush took aim at excessive medical malpractice suits and trial lawyers Thursday in an event that had more than a whiff of 2004 presidential politics.
In a speech in High Point, the president called for new curbs on jury malpractice awards -- $250,000 on pain and suffering -- in what he said was an effort to hold down health-care costs and keep doctors from closing their practices because of high insurance premiums.
"What we want is quality health care, not rich trial lawyers," Bush told about 1,500 people in a sweltering Millis Athletic Center at High Point University.
Bush made the pitch in the back yard of Democratic U.S. Sen. John Edwards, a potential opponent in 2004 who made his fortune as a trial lawyer specializing in malpractice cases. In Washington, Edwards' response was swift. He called a teleconference with reporters and also made a speech on the Senate floor, where he said Bush again was taking sides with big corporations -- insurance companies -- against ordinary people hurt by bad medical care.
Edwards told reporters that Bush's proposal wouldn't affect small cases, but would limit compensation for patients who suffered great harm. "This will affect a situation where a child is blinded for life, where a child is paralyzed for life," he said.
Bush spent much of the day in the Triad, where he met privately with health care providers at High Point Regional Hospital and helped raise between $700,000 and $800,000 at a dinner at the Grandover Resort and Conference Center for GOP Senate candidate Elizabeth Dole.
The trip was Bush's fourth this year to North Carolina, where the White House hopes to keep the seat held by retiring Sen. Jesse Helms in Republican hands.
At a $1,000-a-plate dinner of herbed chicken and filet mignon, Bush praised Dole as someone he needs to get his programs through Congress. "It is important for North Carolina, and it is important for our country that Elizabeth Dole become the next United States senator from North Carolina," Bush said.
Earlier, in a gym packed with health-care workers and Republican supporters, Bush painted a picture of a health-care industry under siege from lawsuits -- with insurance premiums driving up health care costs, doctors performing unnecessary tests to protect against lawsuits and doctors being forced to quit their practices.
One of the examples he cited was Dr. John Schmitt, an obstetrician and gynecologist who gave up his practice in Raleigh last month to join the University of Virginia medical school faculty.
Schmitt, a member of the group that met privately with the president, said his malpractice insurance premiums rose last year from $17,000 to $46,000 and were expected to rise 20 percent to 30 percent in the fall.
"I gave it up because I was sick of dealing with it and working as hard as I was to make those premiums," Schmitt said in an interview. "There was also the stress issue that was driving a wedge between me and my patients."
Bush said the malpractice cases were hurting not only physicians, but their patients, citing the case of Lauri Peel, a Raleigh resident and co-owner of a Raleigh store.
"Lauri Peel had trouble finding a doc when she moved to Raleigh because a lot of the practices were full," Bush said. "Then she ran into Dr. Schmitt. They got a wonderful relationship. Lauri has to find a new doctor she can trust. Lauri's looking for a doc right now. Yet another compelling, real life story about what's taking place all across the country."
The president said that in North Carolina, as well as eight other states, at least two companies raised liability insurance premiums 30 percent this year.
Bush, who was accompanied on the trip by Tommy Thompson, his secretary of health and human services, and by his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, left little doubt that he placed a share of the blame on trial lawyers.
Edwards, in his teleconference with reporters arranged by the Democratic National Committee, linked Bush's proposal to what he called the administration's overall philosophy of siding with big business.
"It's striking that at a time when Wall Street is in shambles [and] the economy is struggling ... the president has chosen to go to North Carolina to help insurance companies against the victims of bad medical care," Edwards said.
Edwards also introduced to reporters the parents of a baby born severely brain-damaged because of a medical error. In 1997, when the child was 3, Edwards secured a $23 million jury verdict in the case, an award cited as an example of plaintiffs winning "the litigation lottery" in a Bush administration report released Thursday.
Christopher Griffin, the father of the baby girl, who died a year-and-a-half ago, said he was angered by the characterization. Griffin's child, Bailey, could not walk, speak or eat normally, and required 24-hour-a-day care.
"What I heard was in some ways we're considered to be lottery winners," Griffin said. "Every time I go to my daughter's grave, it's hard to feel that way."
In his speech on the Senate floor, Edwards said the Bush administration had "been dragged kicking and screaming" to embrace corporate responsibility reforms, had stymied the development of a meaningful patients' bill of rights and "consistently sided with the big drug companies" to prevent the addition of a prescription-drug benefit to Medicare.
Although Bush talked mainly about malpractice reform, he also sought to reassure people about the economy, saying "the fundamentals for economic growth are strong."
Bush won high marks from Stephanie Shafer, a 25-year-old registered nurse at High Point Regional, who voted for Democrat Al Gore in 2000 but who said she would vote for Bush in 2004.
"I have been very impressed with the job the president has been doing," Shafer said.
But to see the president, you had to have connections or pay $1,000 to attend the Dole fund-raiser.
That didn't sit well with Carolyn Walley of High Point, who watched from the sidewalk with her daughter outside the college gym.
"One thousand is an awful lot for regular people," Walley said. "It would be nice if we could actually see them."
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Great idea, Doug!
And more than a few will vote for the lip-wart.
However, trial lawyers are powerful, and a talent for persuasion is what makes them very rich.
There was a time when I had deep respect for the innate genius of the American people. That began to disappear somewhere back there when they laughed at the antics of their twice-elected psychopathic president, shrugged off the Democrats' sale of military secrets to China, couldn't halt third world immigration, and allowed malpractice litigation to price medical care out of the reach of everyone...
Huge numbers of Americans have revealed themselves to be easy dupes.
I'm not the only one who has noticed. America's enemies abroad are also very much aware of this.
With the dumbed-down American electorate, most dem voters have never heard of him and think that John Kerry from MA is Bob Kerry, X-senator from Nebraska.
Gore and Clinton are well-known to the dim-bulb, dem voters but the DNC wants Gore to raise money and bow out.
Clinton will raise big bucks but she won't bow out.
She might settle for VP but that's not her goal.
Totally agree with that.
RE the trial lawyers: They are powerful but they've never had anyone with command of the national stage to take them on. I would think that it would be pretty easy to make them look like the greedy, opportunistic cruds most of them are. And I think this was done as much to associate Edwards with that ilk as anything else.
I disagree a little -- his ego is running for president, his ambition will settle for VP. And don't forget -- a quarter of the voters will vote for his hair.
Okay, please understand that plenty of Democrats are stupid enough to actually go in and pull a lever for this blow-dried empty suit. Every time I see that clown on TV I think of Michael Huffington. Too bad for Edwards that he is married. The things that Arianna could do for him are scary.
I think that Edwards and other smart Democrats understand that Al Gore's ego is bigger than his "member" and that he will run again, a la Adlai Stevenson. This despite the defection of many of Al Gore's former supporters, like Bob Shrum, to the Edwards camp and the enmity of Hillary's people. The rank and file Sturmabteilungen see Al Gore as their Ernst Roehm, sans the screaming homosexuality. So many of the activist, DU types want to see Al Gore win again that they'd be willing to jump off the cliffs at Beachy Head to see it happen.
Gore-Edwards sounds good to me. So good that the Vice Presidential debates would be fun to watch. I'm not even worried about the Presidential debates, as Bush has grown in such stature that he would, quite calmly, deflect the gesticulations of Mr. Timbertoes. Rather, it's the Condi Rice-John Edwards debate that would be absolutely a treasure.
Condi would have Edwards' lunch. Period. Even if Dick Cheney is kept on, which I doubt, that debate would be a laugher.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
WWwwweeewwwwww, I hadn't thought of that. You are so right!
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