Thread: Obamacare Only Healthy for Lawyers

Obamacare Only Healthy for Lawyers
by Rowan Scarborough
09/16/2009

Tucked away in the thousands of pages of the Democrats' health care overhaul bill are a number of gifts to the trial lawyers. Which, by the way, are the Party's largest financial backers.

"America's Affordable Health Choices Act" establishes new routes by which insurance company employees can sue. It sets up new mandates and regulations on care providers, providing more avenues to go court. And it will allow lawyers to file suits over decisions made by arbiters in patient vs. insurance company disputes.

This analysis comes from Republican congressional staffers, who tell HUMAN EVENTS they plan to offer a full report later this week.


The biggest gift of all is what is not in the bill.

There is no tort reform, no limits to malpractice law suits that drive up medical and insurance costs and force insecure physicians to order excessive tests.

There are no caps on what state juries can award in medical malpractice cases for economic lost, or for the hard-to-calculate pain and suffering. This means lawyers hold on to their free rein in suing doctors and medical plans.

To Democrats, no tort reform makes good politics. The Washington Examiner reports trial lawyers have donated three-quarters of a billion dollars to political campaigns the past two decades -- the vast, vast amount of which went to Democrats and their party. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, has gotten $54,000 in campaign funds this year alone from trial lawyers and their employees.

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, a medical doctor, put it this way at an August town hall meeting:

"Here is why tort reform is not in the bill. When you go to pass a really enormous bill like that the more stuff you put in, the more enemies you make, right? And the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on, and that is the plain and simple truth. Now, that’s the truth.â€

I think we should two health care bills, one wrtten by the Dems, for the Dems, and they incorporate it and pay for as a party. And a health care bill written by Reps and paid for by Reps. I'll go with the Rep's bill. I think there bil will be in-line with the real reform that needs to be done.

PS
http://www.therightsideoflife.com/?p=5980

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