Tort Reform!
 

If that's the case, then why are you backing the group that's hurting people?

Tort Reform!
 

Ding ding ding!

Tort Reform!
 

1) This "group" is not hurting people they are helping people. There are some members of the group that are hurting people.

2) I am not backing them. I said that they need better oversight and something needs to be done about the mistakes they are making. But the Tort system is not solving the problem.

3) The current cost of malpractice insurance is completely out of hand and the price is being passed on to consumers. Since the doctors are the direct victims of the problem I think they are the ones that can be most trusted on fingering who the culprit is. I don't trust them to be honest on other stuff, but on this one issues the doctors have every incentive to identify the problem. And they have. It is the trial lawyers. You can't trust the insurance companys because they are one of the suspects and you can't trust the trial lawyers because they are one of the suspects, they are making a lot of money, and they have a vested interest in the system not changing.

The problem has to be the insurance companys or the trial lawyers. And since the insurance companys are not making money on this stuff, and they are all pulling out, not rushing to get in, the problem is clearly not the insurance companys. That just leaves one suspect - the trial lawyers.

What possible incentive could the Doctors have in pointed to the wrong perpetraiter. If the point to the wrong cause they won't be able to fix it. They have every incentive to point out the real problem and get it fixed. The trial lawyers have every incentive to muddle the issue, and stonewall so the system does not change.

The Best of 2005
 

1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked..... And now, the honorable mentions:



2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat-cutting machine and, after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.



3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.



4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.



5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.



6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, he man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer...$15. (If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)



7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinderblock through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinderblock and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinderblock bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.



8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."



9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m.., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.



******A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER*****



10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline and plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

The DLC on Vouchers
 

Any thoughts? I change my mind on this stuff almost weekly. I support Charter Schools, but I don't know about vouchers.


=============================================
THE NEW DEM DISPATCH, January 06, 2006
Political commentary & analysis from the DLC =============================================
[http://www.DLC.org ]

Idea of the Week: Public Accountability for Public Education

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court of Florida struck down Gov. Jeb
Bush's taxpayer-financed private school voucher program on grounds
that it violated a state constitutional provision making it
a "paramount duty" to maintain a "uniform, safe, secure, high- quality system of free public schools."

In holding that Florida's voucher program in effect created an
alternative system of publicly-financed private schools, the Court
relied heavily on the fact that private-school beneficiaries were
exempt from most of the state laws and regulations providing for
public oversight of schools, and accountability for the quality of
instruction received and results achieved. And totally aside from
its interpretation of the Florida Constitution, the ruling helpfully
underlined the crucial difference between voucher programs and the
charter public schools that are often confused with them.

Charter schools are public schools precisely because they are
accountable to the public bodies that authorize them. Indeed,
a "charter" is basically a performance contract that outlines the
school's responsibilities for achieving publicly defined educational
results, and, at least in jurisdictions with good charter laws, such
schools lose their authorization if they fail. Certainly charter
public schools enjoy a lot of flexibility in terms of detailed
regulations, and many of them are actually owned and operated by
private entities, but public accountability defines them entirely.

Generally, voucher programs go in the opposite direction, waiving
accountability for ends as well as means. And despite the tendency
of both voucher fans and defenders of traditional public schools to
treat this as a trivial distinction, it's actually a huge one,
representing the difference between independently operated public
schools and schools that cannot be described as public in any
meaningful way.

Although the Florida decision was important, it would be a mistake
to treat it as some sort of final disposition of the subject. For
one thing, other states do not necessarily have the kind of
constitutional provisions that formed the basis of this decision.
And more importantly, anyone who cares about public education must
stay focused on the political impetus for voucher programs like
Florida's: the failure of traditional public schools in so many
locations, particularly those serving the neediest students. The
proper response to demands for voucher programs is not to demonize
them, but to make a commitment to transform public schools so that
they can achieve the publicly defined results that parents and
taxpayers rightly expect. And that means liberating the charter
public school movement so that it becomes central to public
education, instead of a marginal experiment alongside traditional
public schools and with voucherized private schools.

What can and should define "public" education, aside from the
fundamentals of making it available to all students on a free and
equal basis, is the achievement of the crucial public goals that
justify use of taxpayer funds in the first place: giving American
kids the skills and knowledge they need for success in life,
especially in an information age.

The Best of 2005
 

What's most inexcusable about this is that he didn't adhere to local custom of hosing the car down and thereby turning it into a block of ice.

Striding Man Society
 

Yes, but will he bring the Planes with him?

Logic Reform!
 

Assumption No. 1.

Really? Isn't the person who pays higher healthcare premiums as much of a victim? How about hospitals? Why are doctors the only victims? Note that the people paying healthcare bills and the hospitals may well identify the doctors as the culprit.

I love the "it must be so because they so its so element of this.

And the doctors, who are the only ones who possible could commit medical malpractice, have to be trusted entirely? They couldn't have anything to do with malpractice costs?

Your forgot the victims of malpractice. After all, that is where most of the money goes. And isn't that who you want to penalize by capping recoveries?

Tell me your proposal again, that will penalize the trial lawyers but not harm the victims of malpractice?

Logic Reform!
 

You don't think Medical insurance rates are too high? Did you read that economist article about the price of insurance? Six figures for obstratricians. I really doubt that you would think that six figures for legal malpractice would be reasonable.


I never said the doctors were the only victims. Just one of the victims. I already pointed out that the costs were passed on to consumers. We have had hearings about this issue at the local party meetings, and everyone involved in hospitals, from the nurses to the hospital administrators blame litigation. The only people I have ever heard argue that malpractice claims in this country are not a problem are lawyers, or articles from left wing looneys, like Ralph and Noam, cited by RT.


Put words in my mouth so you can critisize it. I just said I was more inclined to believe the doctors. And when looking at the other factors it seems they are rights.

Sure they may be screwing up, but a lot of doctors aren't and they have to pay outlandish medical insurance premiums.


Eliminating punative damages won't punish them at all. And limiting economic damages to reasonable levels is not punishing them. It is just stopping jurys from running amok. You really want to help the vicitms - how about capping contingency fees at 10%.


How about MICRA instituted nationally?

Logic Reform!
 

Fascinating. Paying victims less does not harm them.

Yes, that is, indeed, what MICRA is all about.

Thank you for the insight, Mr. O'Brien.

Logic Reform!
 

Yes because money solves all problems.

I just found a Pro-Choice Republican women worth millions that is willing to run against Richard Pombo. If Abrahamoff even mentions Pombo I am going to take him out.

Sometimes politics can be really fun.

Logic Reform!
 

It's a small price to pay for an adjustment to the system in which trial lawyers lose a source of revenue and thereby wield less political influence.

It does nothing to improve health care, but really - is that necessary?

Logic Reform!
 

Why wait? The guy wants to sell our national parks. He'll go down sooner or later, and your mystery woman is almost certainly an upgrade.

Logic Reform!
 

I meant taking him out politcally. The primary is not until June. Can't do much until then.

Logic Reform!
 

Sure, you did.


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