This'n'That; February 15th[Medical Tort Reform]

"Clown Prince" Gets His 'Marching Orders' "Clown Prince" obama is getting his marching orders concerning his take-over of 18% of the economy via obamaCare. The self-centered morons of the American Association for Justice--as trial lawyiers' mouthpiece--previously defeated President Bush's attempts at medical tort reform; now it's Fluffy's turn to take their orders!! The autoworkers' unions as well as the SEIU are sure to make their demands known as well. If the republicRATs "bite" on this next "piece of fluff" from the administration, they SHOULD be voted out!! High medical malpractice insurance premiums and even higher tort pay-outs have strangled the concept of "quality and affordable healthcare/health insurance premiums. Fluffy has steadfastly stood by the 'ambulance-chasing' lawyers in their opposition to tort reform of any stripe!! The "Clown Prince" has hinted that he'll consider tort reform as a carrot to the republicRATs' agreeing to a bipartisan obamaCare bill; DON'T FALL FOR IT!! That "carrot" will soon turn into a "stick" with which obama intends to beat them back--giving him another reason to continue to paint the opposition as the "party of no!!" Fluffy's handlers have announced that they'll post the details of their obamaCare reform proposal on-line, prior to the February 25th summit... I'll believe that when I see it!! Some states have addressed medical tort reform on their own; Let's check how reform worked in Texas. The 1995 session of Texans for Lawsuit Reform; TLR (with George W. Bush as Governor):

• Limited punitive damages;
• Reformed joint and several liability;
• Restricted venue shopping;
• Restored the Deceptive Trade Practices Act to its original purpose of protecting consumers in ordinary consumer ransactions;
• Enacted a half dozen other reforms to curtail specific lawsuit abuses.

The 2003 session (with James Richard "Rick" Perry as Governor):

• Enacted comprehensive reforms governing medical liability litigation, including a $750,000 limit on non-economic damages;
• Initiated product liability reforms;
• Made the burden of proving punitive damages similar to criminal law, requiring a unanimous jury verdict;
• Comprehensively reformed the statutes governing joint and several liability and class action lawsuits;
• Imposed limits on appeal bonds, enabling defendants to appeal their lawsuits and not be forced into settlements (this is what pushed Texaco into bankruptcy in its famous lawsuit against Pennzoil);
• Further limited the filing of lawsuits that should have been brought in other states or countries.

The changes to medical liability in 2003 were extraordinary, and had a very substantial impact, including:

• 1. In August 2004, the Texas Hospital Association reported a 70% reduction in the number of lawsuits filed against the state’s hospitals.
• 2. Medical liability insurance rates declined. Many doctors saw average rate reductions of over 21%, with some doctors seeing almost 50% decreases. (Recent information provided to The Perryman Group during the course of this study suggests that premiums are declining even further in 2008.)
• 3. Beginning in 2003, physicians started returning to Texas. The Texas Medical Board reports licensing 10,878 new physicians since 2003, up from 8,391 in the prior four years. Perryman has determined that at least 1,887 of those physicians are specifically the result of lawsuit reform.
• 4. In May 2006, the American Medical Association removed Texas from its list of states experiencing a liability crisis, marking the first time it has removed any state from the list. A recent survey by the Texas Medical Association also found a dramatic increase in physicians’ willingness to resume certain procedures they had stopped performing, including obstetrics, neurosurgical, radiation and oncological procedures.

In 2008, TLR commissioned a study by The Perryman Group to determine the impact of these reforms. Here are the economic impact findings of that study:

• $112.5 billion increase in annual spending;
• $51.2 billion increase in annual output–goods and services produced in Texas;
• $2.6 billion increase in annual state tax revenue;
• $468.9 million in annual benefits from safer products;
• $15.2 billion in annual net benefits of enhanced innovation
• 499,000 permanent jobs;
• 430,000 additional Texans have health insurance today as a result of the medical liability reforms.
• http://tlrfoundation.com/beta/files/Texas_Tort_Reform_Report_2008.pdf

Given the aforementioned statistics, how can anyone [well, excepting the current fascist government!!] deny that medical tort reform WORKS?!?! obamaCare notwithstanding, each and every state legislature should strongly consider enacting reforms similar to those in Texas. See the increases in personal earnings; increases in state tax revenue?? This would be a boon to state treasuries such as New York and California; two states that are running huge deficits due to their "piss-away" rates of spending!!

Fluffy obama notwithstanding, the congress has been controlled by the obamacRATs since 2006!! If true and meaningful medical tort reform were important to the moronic leadership[?] of that party, it would already be law!! With majorities in both houses, there'd be no way the few objectors could stall the legislation!!

I've found a report denoting reforms--by state--concerning tort reform in general. To see if your state is involved in tort reform, go here: http://uspolitics.about.com/library/bl_tort_reform_state_table.htm

• 38 States---Modified Joint-and-Several Liability: Have based the amount for which a defendant can be held liable on the proportion of fault attributed, but the formulas differ substantially from state to state. In addition, most of the reforms apply to specific types of torts or have other restrictions.
• 25 States---Modified the Collateral-Source Rule: Typical reforms either permit evidence of collateral source payments to be admitted at trial, allow awards to plaintiffs to be offset by other payments, or both.
• 23 States---Limit Non-economic Damages: The caps range from $250,000 to $750,000. More than half of the reforms apply to torts involving medical malpractice.
• 34 States---Limit Punitive Damages: Various types of limits include outright bans; fixed dollar caps ranging from $250,000 to $10Million; caps equal to a multiple of compensatory awards.

Til Nex'Time....