Thomas Sowell: Special Interests (from Townhall.com)

[jmowreader]

I don't normally troll townhall.com, but I saw this in the local paper...

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20040203.shtml

Specific slam at Senator Edwards: "(Trial lawyer John Edwards) alone added $60 million to the cost of medical care."

Well gee...maybe if doctors would quit screwing up, he wouldn't have to have "added $60 million to the cost of medical care." And that's what the RW keeps forgetting: these guys aren't suing doctors because suing doctors is fun.

[CO Liberal]

1. Thomas Sowell...

...is a sorry excuse for a human being. Any newspaper that runs his column is not serving their readers, IMHO.

[jmowreader]

7. This paper has to run a black columnist or two...

And, unfortunately, Thomas Sowell is one of the few. The fact that he's a damn fool is immaterial at this point. We have a large African-American population who expect to see African-American editorialists; Sowell is as close as they got for a while.

What the hell; the Fayetteville Observer is a right-wing rag that's just left enough (basically one notch to the left of Lyndon LaRouche) that all the freepers in town think it's a liberal newspaper. Every time they run a Molly Ivins column they get roasted. They get attacked for Doonesbury continually.

[mars_clover]

2. hmm.

I agree it's the usual townhall crap, but I have to chime in about doctors. They are only human, and they will make mistakes. I think it's silly to sue someone into obilvion (and consequently raise my healthcare costs) because they made an honest mistake. Negligance,of course, is a different matter. But honest mistakes should not carry such enormous penalties. Doctors are not gods.

Clover

[library_max]

3. The question is, how to solve the problem.

Tort reform cuts off the opportunity to address real and legitimate grievances through torts, grievances which in many cases can be redressed in no other way. Proponents of tort reform use a handful of horrible examples (some of them completely misrepresented) to make a case for across-the-boards restrictions on the right to sue and collect damages. Particularly repugnant is the apparent idea that attorneys have no right to accrue income from their share in the process.

What's really driving up the cost of health care is greedy insurance companies and other middlemen. You won't catch Thomas Sowell writing about that.

[mars_clover]

4. Ok, but...

"Particularly repugnant is the apparent idea that attorneys have no right to accrue income from their share in the process.

What's really driving up the cost of health care is greedy insurance companies and other middlemen."

What the attorneys have a right to accrue income from their share in the process, but insurance companies and other middlemen don't?

Fact is, everyone wants a piece of the lawsuit pie. Like a bunch of damned vultures just salivating at the chance to catch a doctor making a mistake.

I don't know what the answer is.

Clover

[Lefty48197]

5. I agree: Doctors ARE human.

And they will make mistakes. Here's my solution:
Nationalize the malpractice insurance industry. Take the 20% profit off the top, and all of the sudden the insurance becomes affordable.

[mars_clover]

6. Heck yeah!

I say not only nationalize the malpractice insurance, but ALL insurance. Take the profit off the top, and now all insurance becomes affordable.

Clover

[Eric J in MN]

8. Texas passed a $250,000 cap on pain-and-suffering awards about 5 months

Texas passed a $250,000 cap on pain-and-suffering awards about 5 months ago, and so far the insurance-companies haven't lowered their prices.

I wouldn't support a cap even if it did lower prices.

Stop the bad-doctors from practicing to control big payouts.

[question everything]

9. Jurors, not attorneys determine the obscene sums n/t