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Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on Wednesday said he stands with transgender individuals from his state in a tweet following President Trump’s announcement that he will ban all transgender persons from serving in the United States military.

Litigation: The Founding Fathers envisioned the states as laboratories for ideas and choices. If the administration needs a demonstration project for successful tort reform, it need look no further than Mississippi. When President Obama said during his health care speech to Congress that he would "look into" malpractice reform and support "demonstration projects" at the state level, Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, a Republican, responded: "If they want a demonstration project, come down to Mississippi. I'll show you a demonstration project." Mississippi enacted tort reform in 2004, including caps on medical malpractice awards. As a result, the number of medical...

But it's unclear whether Obama intends to work tort reform into the bill at all. He treated his entry into the issue Wednesday night as an executive-level regulatory change, directing Sebelius to immediately work toward starting the pilot programs in individual states.

President Barack Obama's push for an overhaul of the nation's health care system could be stymied by Senate lawmakers, particularly moderate Democrats, the lobbyist for trial lawyers said... "Democracy is a great thing except on the Senate floor," she said.

Senate Democrats on Monday blocked the latest Republican attempts to limit damages for pain and suffering in medical malpractice lawsuits. Republicans offered two versions of the bill, one applying to all malpractice cases and the other limited to obstetrics and gynecology, an area with high malpractice insurance costs. Both bills failed to garner the 60 votes necessary in the 100-member Senate to advance to a full debate. The vote was 48-42 on the broader bill and 49-44 on the obstetrics and gynecology bill, largely along party lines. President George W. Bush and his Republican allies have been trying to pass...

President Bush addressed medical liability reform at the Gateway Center in Collinsville, Illinois, continuing his push for limits on jury awards for medical mistakes. Carlos M. Gutierrez appeared before members of the Senate, on his nomination to be Secretary of Commerce Wednesday. Pressure Cooker -- Andrew Card (the longest-serving presidential Chief of Staff in 46 years), Has the Recipe for Chief of Staff Down Pat Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island!

John Edwards said the other night, regarding Bush and Cheney's proposed medical liability reform: Because, in context, everything they're proposing, according to the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office, amounts to about half of 1 percent of health-care costs in this country -- half of one percent. There are a lot of ways that he could represent this so that it was technically true, but the thrust of this statement -- that huge malpractice payouts do not affect what you pay for health insurance -- is patently untrue. I don't necessarily think that Bush's health care plan will solve all of our...

Rhetoric WOMAN: “How long will they be playing with our minds? The problem of Cuba must be resolved by us Cubans.” CHYRON: Gladys Exiliada en el ano 1964. The Facts Kerry Has Long Voted Against Stronger Cuba Sanctions Kerry Voted Against Cuba Sanctions At Least Four Times. (H.R. 927, CQ Vote #22: Adopted 74-22: R 47-4; D 27-18, 3/5/96, Kerry Voted Nay; S. 955, CQ Vote #183: Rejected 38-61: R 5-49; D 32-12, 7/17/97, Kerry Voted Yea; S. 1234, CQ Vote #189: Motion Agreed To 55-43: R 43-10; D 12-33, 6/30/99, Kerry Voted Nay; S. 2549, CQ Vote #137: Motion...

As the former state cabinet secretary whose duties included overseeing health care, Masten Childers II has spent a lot of time dealing with hospitals. Case in point: Howard Chapman, a patient in whose abdomen UK surgeons left a blue surgical towel, an oversight that was not discovered for more than two years after he had kidney surgery. Chapman, who is represented by Childers, sued UK, two doctors and a scrub technician in September. Since that filing, UK has not denied that its doctors and a scrub technician left the towel behind, or that it caused Chapman serious problems and had...