More vapid public relations propaganda from Salon that is pawned off as 'news'. The GOP got no 'groove' back but only digs itself deeper into the same rut where it belongs.

Salon! Have you no self-respect? Now you are shilling for public relations firms?! What vapid, brain-dead, rubbish!

A worthy article but it demonstrates that there are actually two original sins: gullibility and nincompoopery.

This travesty of ‘tort reform’ has been going on for years - ever since California enacted MICRA. All this legislation is aimed at one thing and one thing only - lawyers.

Understand the cynical game. No voter would vote for (and no legislator support a bill) that would limit an injured patient’s right to just compensation for malpractice; but everybody resents lawyers - they! are the ‘culprits’ not negligent doctors. It’s a perfect example of the book “What’s the Matter With Kansas?” The way you get people to vote against their own interest is to go alter the lawyers. You don’t dare legislate to take away the injured patient’s right of recovery - instead you legislate to cut into the amount of money a lawyer can make in a fee. The higher the verdict the lower the lawyers fee.

Since Med Mal is VERY expensive litigation, this cuts into the patients right of access to the courts and their right to seek redress for their grievances. The result is that no good meed mal attorney will take your case unless you have near catastrophic damages because it costs too much to litigate. Then, when you legislate to legislate to reduce attorneys’ fees, no lawyer will take a big case because the higher the verdict the less they get paid.

Understand the cynical device: rather than attack your right to recover for malpractice (politically incorrect) they will do the same by simply making it impossible for you to get legal representation. They target the lawyers because they presume you hate lawyers but the REAL goal (and a VERY effective one since MICRA) is to prevent you from gaining access to the courts. Very clever. Very cynical.

Yes, it IS true, this can bring down the cost of health care simply by denying you a remedy! It's just like automobile product liability. That jury verdict, that judgment, are always passed on to the other consumers - they 'spread the risk' and the cost. But, without exception, literally EVERY safety feature in modern automobiles is the direct result of a multi-million dollar judgment against auto makers who never have made those changes unless the bastards were sued.

When you create a culture in which it’s safe for doctors to malpractice you can be sure of one thing: they will!

Thank you Nancy Pelosi! I don’t think she has ever so reached into my heart and soul. Indeed, I have always felt her demeanor was icy, calculated, and too often downright phoney. For some reason Nancy Pelosi never evoked the notion of ‘authenticity’ for me; but here the ice all melted, all facade fell away and there she was 125% human.

Her comments were very carefully chosen, hesitant and deliberative. It’s clear she was thinking very deeply about each word she put out and she was very circumspect. I was here in San Fran on that beautiful bleak day and there are a few words you are missing that, I think, reflect the wisdom that lies beneath Senator Pelosi’s statements. Perhaps because you were not here you missed words carefully excluded but implicated by innuendo: Dan White and Joe Wilson. There are differences of degree and let’s hope it stays that way but in kind they are the same - two men so filled with hatred and self-righteous animosity that they can not govern their own acts or words.

Freedom of Speech is not absolute. It is axiomatic that no one has a right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater or incite others to riot. For all practical purposes that’s what Joe Wilson did. Nor can one, with ‘actual malice’ and reckless disregard for truth or falsity, so slander a private person or even a ‘public figure’ as Joe Wilson did his president. Maureen Dowd nailed him to the wall like the bug that he is. And though he apologized to Obama he arrogantly refused to apologize to his colleagues. More on this in a separate post. My point for now is that with rights come responsibilities and Joe Wilson trashed and abused the ‘fundamental’ right our country holds so dear: Freedom of Speech. We might hope his petty hatreds never degenerate to the level of a Dan White but Senator Pelosi was dead-on to issue warning that (as our airwaves prove) there are many mentally unbalanced citizens who, like Joe Wilson, take pride in their ignorance and who hear those words as a licence to do real harm.

Senator Pelosi spoke sage wisdom and did it so authentically and from the heart that I really don’t think I could ever dislike her again. She is to be saluted for her courage.