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Posted on 07/09/2003 6:15:44 AM PDT by friendly
Democrats are expected to muster the 41 votes needed to kill medical liability reform in the Senate today, so why are Republicans smiling? Perhaps because they know they're teeing up what promises to be one of their better issues going into 2004.
Democrats have long made the Senate the graveyard of any and all legal reform. The news is that they're having a harder time getting away with it. The scandal of asbestos litigation has forced them at least to bargain on that issue, while momentum is also building to limit class-action suits. It says something about Tom Daschle's devotion to the trial bar that he's willing to ask his Members to walk the plank even on medical liability, just as voters are discovering the damage it is doing to health care across the country.
No fewer than 19 states are in "malpractice" crisis; Doctors have protested or walked out from Nevada to New Jersey, while pregnant women have had to cross state lines to find an obstetrician. One New Jersey doctor has held seminars to train toll-booth operators in emergency delivery, since more live births are likely to occur in transit to a distant hospital.
Before Texas passed a recent reform, 14 of 17 medical insurers had left in the past two years. In Arkansas, doctors who treat nursing-home patients face a 1,000% premium increase on renewals. In West Virginia, trauma centers closed and doctors went on strike before Democratic Governor Bob Wise led a successful reform effort. Because they contribute to the practice of "defensive" medicine--or unnecessary procedures just to be sure--liability suits are also a major cause of rising health-care costs.
But the main result of today's vote will be to get the Democrats on record for killing reform one more time. They will then have handed President Bush and most Republicans an issue that is both good policy and good politics for next year. In a debate between lawyers and patients, we know where the voters will come down.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
I think that the trial lawyers are only too happy to be a part of the democrat effort to destroy the health care system, so that the democrats will then trot themselves out of the shadows to claim to be saviors!.
I strongly believe that national health care will be the cornerstone to a Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign!!
It will be interesting to see which of these approaches work: the deceitful Rat plan or Republican plans to nationalize the election on the issue of shyster reform.
Wonder how long until lawsuits are filed against the deep pockets of the state over this...
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