Supporters of socialized medicine in the United States have cleverly used the term ‘health care reform’ to describe creating a massive new entitlement program. In politics, semantics can go a long way to garner public support. People overwhelming reject a government takeover of the health care industry but ‘reform’ sounds like such a good thing.

Since liberals want to reform health care, how about starting with tort reform in the medical industry? Doctors and hospitals have to pay massive insurance premiums to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits. In most malpractice cases there is no limit to the judgment which a plaintiff can receive, which in turn forces insurers to charge higher and higher premiums. The costs are in turn passed on to patients. Obviously, we need to protect patients from medical negligence and incompetence, but we also need to protect patients (and the rest of us) from sky rocketing medical insurance premiums.

A man calls his attorneys office and is told that his lawyer had died.

The next day he calls back, and again is told his lawyer had died.

The next day he calls again, and the receptionist tells the man for the third time he is dead.

“Why do you keep calling? I’ve told you repeatedly that your attorney is dead!” she said.

He replies, “I know, I just love hearing it”.

Tort reform does not mean that patents cannot receive compensation for damages caused by malpractice; it only limits the monetary amount they can receive. Instead of juries awarding arbitrary judgments were emotion can cloud reasonable monetary amounts; tort reform would create guidelines by which juries would rule.

Because incidents of medical malpractice are relatively rare, greedy lawyers had to invent new and creative ways to win huge judgments from juries. No one was better at this than former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee John Edwards. Edwards made a fortune suing doctors for causing cerebral palsy, even going so far as to ‘channel’ the spirit of a child that was born with cerebral palsy in the court room. For families affected by cerebral palsy, it is natural to be angry and feel the need to blame someone. However, according to leading physicians in the field, cases of medical practitioners causing CP are exceedingly rare.1 Despite this, Edwards sued 63 Doctors for CP related malpractice and won judgments totaling $152 million.2 Don’t think Edwards is motivated to do this by an overwhelming need to help grief stricken families affected by CP, for Edwards it is about the money. Edwards’ palatial Chapel Hill estate includes an indoor pool, indoor basketball court, and private soccer field. Wow! Talk about two Americas, one for millionaire trial lawyers and one for the rest of us.

What do you call a retired lawyer?

A politician.

Of course trial lawyers are opposed to tort reform, but who cares? Nobody likes lawyers, right? Wrong. Democrats apparently love lawyers; many of them are former trail lawyers themselves. According to DNC head Howard Dean, health care reform would not include tort reform because Dems are unwilling to go against trail lawyer groups. It goes without saying that trial lawyers are major democratic donors. The American Association for Justice, formerly the American Trial Lawyers Association, gave $2.8 million to Democrats in 2008. To contrast, the AAJ gave the GOP just $140 thousand in the same year, if you are keeping score that’s 95% Dems, 5% GOP.

In addition to the high cost of medical malpractice insurance, doctors, many times perform unnecessary tests and procedures to lessen their exposure to possible lawsuit.

Patent: Doc I gotta sore throat.

Doctor: OK I’m scheduling some blood work and a chest x-ray.

Patent: I said a sore throat; nothing is wrong with my chest!

Doctor: Never can be too careful with these things, better schedule a CT scan as well.

Not only does this practice raise patents costs, it also waists valuable medical resources that could have been used for a more legitimate purpose.

Tort reform would reduce the cost of medical insurance, thereby making it more accessible to more Americans. It would reduce the cost of medical insurance for people that currently have it. It would allow doctors to practice better more efficient medicine. It would not allow trail lawyers to get rich on the backs of victims of medical accidents or error, and that is why Democrats will never agree to it.

Liberals want more Americans to have health insurance, right? They want to reduce costs and improve care. It’s true they do want all of these things; just not as much as they want to keep trial lawyers happy.

What’s the difference between a lawyer and a terrorist?

You can negotiate with a terrorist.