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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (74837)	10/10/2009 4:36:40 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

CBO: Save $54 billion on health care by cutting out the lawyers By: David Freddoso Commentary Staff Writer beltway-confidential 10/09/09 4:18 PM EDT The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has produced a report on the savings that the government could reap if relatively painless tort reform provisions are included in the health insurance reform bill before Congress. And the results would be encouraging, if there were any chance of these provisions becoming law. The list of reforms that CBO considered includes: * A reform of "joint and several liability." This means that instead of putting one "deep-pocketed" defendant on the hook for everything, each defendant would pay only his fair share according to his liability. * A $250,000 cap on non-economic damages. * A cap on punitive damages equal to $500,000 or twice economic damages, whichever is greater. * A claw-back of money already recovered from insurers. * A limit on the percentage of judgements and settlements that trial lawyers can pocket. The CBO report cites studies that already show reduced Medicare costs in states where some or all of these liability reforms have already been implemented. The conclusion: <<< In the case of the federal budget, enactment of such a package of proposals would reduce mandatory spending for Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits program by roughly $41 billion over the next 10 years. >>> CBO says that the reforms would also increase tax revenues by $13 billion, as premiums drop and a greater share of employees' income becomes taxable take-home pay. The bottom line for the federal government is $54 billion over ten years, including $11 billion this year. The marginal benefits are limited in part -- again -- by the fact that many states have already adopted some or all of the malpractice tort reforms under discussion. California, Texas and Mississippi, for example, all limit non-economic damages. Medicare and other federal programs, along with what some could call the entire "health care system," are already reaping these benefits in those jurisdictions. But the upshot is that, given a choice between cutting back trial lawyers' profits on the one hand, and raising taxes and cutting Medicare benefits on the other (the Democrats' current plan), it would seem obvious which is the lower-hanging fruit, and which should have priority in health reform. washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (74837)	10/10/2009 4:38:49 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 90947

Civil Rights Commission to Holder: Investigate ACORN now! By: Barbara Hollingsworth Local Opinion Editor beltway-confidential 10/09/09 5:01 PM EDT Gerald A. Reynolds, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, sent a letter today asking Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a “full-fledged, nationwide investigation of ACORN...with all deliberate speed.” The Oct. 9 letter, also signed by four other commissioners, notes that ACORN is now “the subject of vote fraud investigation in some 15 states.” The letter cites an internal report in which ACORN itself raised “serious questions about the relationships between its nearly 175 affiliates and possible violations of federal law” – including money transfers, possible conflicts of interest of employees working for more than one affiliate, and widespread evidence of ACORN’s role in fostering vote fraud. The commissioners called the filing of “possibly hundreds of thousands of fraudulent voter registration applications in some 14 states” an “invidious invitation for corruption” that disenfranchises legitimate voters, and called on Holder to take “serious and rapid action.” Commissioners previously criticized Holder for dropping a Department of Justice investigation into alleged voter intimidation in Philadelphia by the New Black Panther Party. washingtonexaminer.com