Go Home

tort reform

4 documents found in 0 seconds.

Get Adobe Flash player

DOWNLOADS: (281)
Download WMV Download Quicktime
PLAYS: (822)
Play WMV Play Quicktime
Embed

While discussing one year after the passage of The Affordable Care Act, whether most Americans support the law or not, Brit Hume throws this bit of nonsense out there:

HUME: What I would say about this is, think how different this would be now had the president and the Democrats in Congress been willing to incorporate some Republican ideas; a serious attempt at tort reform for example. He would have gotten I think not only much of what, he, the president wanted, Republicans would have gotten some of they wanted. A bunch of them would have voted for it. This notion that it's a partisan bill would be gone and the whole picture would look different right now from the way it does.

I actually in my life have never seen anything like this. I've never seen a bill with this much consequence rammed through by one party alone. And it raised questions about the legitimacy of the measure from the start and those questions persist today. And that is why, even with the polls that you and Juan cited and there are others that show something quite different, the thing remains up in the air and I think Bill is right in thinking that it will be a burden to this presidency.

What fantasy world is Hume living in? Does he really think we're supposed to believe that Republicans were ever going to vote for that bill, no matter how many of their ideas were incorporated into it? This is the party of Jim DeMint who said he wanted the stall the bill being passed for as long as possible because he wanted it to be Obama's "Waterloo" that John wrote about here -- SC's Jim DeMint would rather bring pain to President Obama than help the American people.

And would someone please explain to me what good it did to do all that wrangling and deal-making with Olympia Snowe that Susie wrote about here?

As Jon Perr pointed out in this post, bipartisanship is dead, "but it is the Republican Party which killed it." -- Bipartisanship's Willing Executioners:

Continue reading »



Get Adobe Flash player

DOWNLOADS: (410)
Download WMV Download Quicktime
PLAYS: (397)
Play WMV Play Quicktime
Embed

During the Health Care Summit Dick Durbin whacked the Republicans for their lies about the cost of medical malpractice with their cries for tort reform and for their fear mongering over calling the Democrats' health care plan some sort of evil socialist plot to destroy America. It would be nice to hear this sort of talk out of them more often. From Sen. Durbin's web site:

DURBIN: Step back for a second and look at who we are in this room. As

was said many years ago, the law in its majestic equality forbids both the wealthy and the poor from sleeping under bridges. When it comes to the wealthy in health care per capita, we're the wealthiest people in America. the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program administered by the federal government, setting minimum standards for the health insurance that we enjoy as individuals and want for our families, is all we're asking for in this bill for families across America.

If you think it's a socialist plot and it's wrong, for goodness

sakes drop out of the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program. But

if you think it's good enough for your family, shouldn't our health

insurance be good enough for the rest of America? That's what it gets

down to. Why have this double standard?

Transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »



Sen. Al Franken Debates Health Care Reform

Get Adobe Flash player

DOWNLOADS: (1366)
Download WMV Download Quicktime
PLAYS: (9716)
Play WMV Play Quicktime
Embed

Sen. Al Franken during the health care bill debate taking on Republican talking points on rationing, tort reform, taxes on CEO compensation and the need for reforming our health care system.



Get Adobe Flash player

DOWNLOADS: (1427)
Download WMV Download Quicktime
PLAYS: (1232)
Play WMV Play Quicktime
Embed

I caught this on Hardball as well and was focused on Matthews touting tort reform as a solution to health care costs, which is nothing but a distraction and right wing talking point as Daphne Eviatar does a nice job of summing up here. Digby took note of why allowing the likes of Haley Barbour to tout Mississippi as a model for health care reform is absolutely ridiculous.

The state is a disaster when it comes to health care on every front. But they have reduced their premiums and now nobody can expect restitution if a drunk doctor cuts off the wrong limb, so everything's just ducky in Haley's world. In fact the whole country should "experiment" with Mississippi's great successes.

In case you were wondering, number one is Vermont, followed by Hawaii and Iowa. If Barbour and his buddies were willing to take the lead of the states that actually deliver pretty good health care his words wouldn't ring so hollow. But all he cares about is destroying trial lawyers on behalf of his rich friends and throwing poor people off Medicaid. I don't think that's a serious solution to the problem so there's no reason to listen to anything he or any other Republican says on this subject.

Lots of stats and more over at Digby's place. So much for that "librul" media huh?

Transcript via Nexis Lexis below the fold.

Continue reading »