The Hidden Strategic Agenda Behind Tort Reform - Cut off Democratic Funds

[NAO]

On the level of right-wing rhetoric, 'tort-reform' is about physicians and malpractice and lowering the cost of medical services. That's what they use to sell it to the masses.

Under that stated agenda is a much more insidious and malicious agenda that is obvious to most people who look into the issues. With 'tort-reform' limiting product liability and corporate liability, corporations will be able to 'build the cost' of faulty products or dangerous or negligent mistakes into their financial structure. They can ensure profitability and be freed from the constraint of the fear of devastating lawsuits. All 'deep pockets' will suddenly become shallow and of known depth.

But an even more insidious and strategic objective of tort reform is to de-fund the Democratic party. Trial lawyers are a MAJOR source of funding for the Democrats. If their financial success can be curtailed, it will have a ripple effect that will financially castrate the Democratic Party.

So not only will corporations run amok unopposed, but the Republican Party will run amok unopposed. The neocon strategists are very adept. They rarely do anything that does not have a strategic as well as a specific objective. For example, consider the placement of the gay marriage bans on the ballot to crank-up turnout of Bush supporters. Very clever, and it achieved both objectives. Everything they do is both a power grab and a way to position themselves to be able to grab more power.

But the tort reform thing is just awful on all counts – defeating it should definitely be one of the top-priority progressive causes.

[flpoljunkie]

1. And only 2% of health care spending attributed to malpractice costs.

Democrats need to say this at every opportunity.

A January 2004 Congressional Budget Office study reported that, “Malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of spending" and that caps would make essentially no difference in health care costs or health insurance premiums; a bill with caps on noneconomic damages and a ban on punitive damages “would lower health care costs by only 0.4 percent to 0.5 percent, and the likely effect on health insurance premiums would be comparably small.”

http://www.mtla.net/news12.html

[autorank]

2. It's been this way since David Stockman, Reagan's OMB Director.

This was the rationale for the first Reagan tax cut and Stockman was the pseudo-corporate toady behind this. His reward, a cushy job as an 'investment banker' on Wall Street. There is hope, however. The diverted funds are used by Red states to run their welfare programs. When the Wal Mart employees find that their medical benefit -- Medicaid -- is insolvent, they may re-evaluate their sense of 'values.'

Corporate America controls the media and we get manufactured news.
Corporate America now controls the voting machines and we get manufactured elections.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/