Bob Beckel and Obama’s Real Problem

First let me say that I like Bob Beckel. I disagree with almost everything that he believes but I like him. Why? Because Bob is an unapologetic ideologue. He doesn’t piss on your leg with feel good rhetoric and tell you it’s raining jelly beans and sunshine.

Bob has said that he thought a little socialism would be a good thing. Note to Bob: There’s no such thing as a little socialism.

Last week he penned an article offering President Obama a guaranteed silver bullet to get the socialized medicine pushed through and more importantly get a big chunk of Republican support.

It’s a good read but here is the real meat.

Universal healthcare has been our fight for 50 years. It is ingrained in our DNA and we are close. There are no guarantees, but Democrats offering tort reform will confound the Republicans, take away one of their most potent arguments, and put us back on the offensive. If that means throwing some trial lawyers under the bus, so be it.

Why haven’t we talked about tort reform during this entire debate? Because we haven’t wanted to bite one of the biggest hands that feed us. That substantial and legitimate disagreement over the effects of medical malpractice awards on health care costs is another. And there is our child-like fear the trail lawyers will abandon us.

On that last point let me be brutally pragmatic. The trial lawyers won’t abandon us because they have nowhere else to go. As a trail lawyer friend admitted to me, “I hate to lose medical malpractice, but there’s a whole lot of suing to do out there that has nothing to do with doctors”. And that’s the point. We’re not talking about massive tort reform. We’re not taking tobacco and asbestos of the table. We’re talking a cap on punitive damages.

Keep in mind that Bob’s claim to fame was being the national campaign director for Walter Mondale and leading one of the most disastrous Democrat attempts in history.

I don’t disagree with Bob’s assertion that inserting tort reform would take the Republicans off message and could even possibly pick up a few squishy Republicans along the way.

So, why can’t/won’t Obama heed his advice?

Here is a relevant quote from a fairly prominent politician about the same issue that seems to agree with Bob.

First, we cannot have health care reform without tort reform. The two are intertwined. For example, one supposed justification for socialized medicine is the high cost of health care. As Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently noted, “If Mr. Obama is serious about lowering costs, he’ll need to reform the economic structures in medicine—especially programs like Medicare.” [1] Two examples of these “economic structures” are high malpractice insurance premiums foisted on physicians (and ultimately passed on to consumers as “high health care costs”) and the billions wasted on defensive medicine.
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So I have new questions for the president: Why no legal reform? Why continue to encourage defensive medicine that wastes billions of dollars and does nothing for the patients? Do you want health care reform to benefit trial attorneys or patients?

This should make Craissi’s frigging tiny little brain explode.

Sarah Palin said this and has been saying it for a year.

I know that hurts Craissi and I’m glad that it does so here is some more.

Many states, including my own state of Alaska, have enacted caps on lawsuit awards against health care providers. Texas enacted caps and found that one county’s medical malpractice claims dropped 41 percent, and another study found a “55 percent decline” after reform measures were passed. [4] That’s one step in health care reform. Limiting lawyer contingency fees, as is done under the Federal Tort Claims Act, is another step. The State of Alaska pioneered the “loser pays” rule in the United States, which deters frivolous civil law suits by making the loser partially pay the winner’s legal bills. Preventing quack doctors from giving “expert” testimony in court against real doctors is another reform.

To make sure the pain does not cease, here’s another rising Republican’s approach to healthcare reform.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry noted that, after his state enacted tort reform measures, the number of doctors applying to practice medicine in Texas “skyrocketed by 57 percent” and that the tort reforms “brought critical specialties to underserved areas.” These are real reforms that actually improve access to health care.

In spite of what might be good for the country, Obama cannot politically embrace anything from Sarah Palin.

The Democrats would wreck this country before allowing Palin to be credited with saving it.

Change. In deed.

Category: Politics