Hewitt - This is what I get for reading Paul Krugman before going to bed --the blogging equivalent of a gag reflex. <font size=4>Krugman is as dishonest as he usually is, this time about the Kerry and Bush <font color=blue>"health plans,"<font color=black> as he puts it.
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Perhaps because I spent double digit hours at a hospital today in the company of a dear friend having complicated surgery, I am unwilling to let this nonsense pass --this puffing of Kerry promises without even a mention of the Edwards' wreckage.
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Because it is Edwards' gang of ambulance chasers --er, plaintiffs' lawyers-- that is the worst crisis in American medicine, a genuine plague of locusts driving doctors from the field, quickly forcing thousands of practioners to flee their craft. Krugman doesn't even mention this huge blight, no doubt because a well-heeled New Yorker can still find an ob-gyn, but not for long in rural or urban America. Kerry can offer all the dream benefits he wants, but none of it happens without doctors, and I don't expect Vice President Edwards will be pushing tort reform any time soon.
Look, don't believe me. Believe the cover story in this past Sunday's Los Angeles Times' Magazine: <font color=blue>"Medical Alert"<font color=black> by Janet Wells. Here's the key graph:
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" Then there's the risk aspect of medicine. U.S. doctors get sued—a lot. Half of the country's neurosurgeons are sued each year, along with one-third of the obstetricians. On any given day, more than 125,000 malpractice lawsuits are in progress against America's doctors. The liability associated with practicing medicine has sent malpractice rates soaring, according to The Doctors Company, a physician-owned medical malpractice insurer based in Napa. In California, rates went up 31% during the last five years. In Florida, the rates increased 105% over six years, and in Nebraska, 184% during the same period. Some specialists pay $200,000 for insurance each year."
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Draw a chart. Use a straight line projection, not an exponential one. Even the low ball wrecks the medical profession.
Senators Kerry and Edwards are opponents of tort reform.
Which makes them opponents of genuine health care reform,
no matter what their "plan" promises. It is that simple.
And Paul Krugman is either a fool or a liar for not even
addressing the subject in two columns on <font color=blue>"health plans."<font color=black>
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