We endured eight years of the Bush administration’s use of dubious statistics to support their political objective of limiting malpractice awards and other types of “tort reform”. Bush claimed enacting such liability limitations would save the economy between $60 and $100 billion per year. Nevermind that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that only negligible savings could be expected. Now that we are engaged in a national health care reform debate, Republicans are continuing to make the same outrageous claims without any factual support.
Under the Bush administration there has been a steady erosion of an injured person’s right to recover damages for his injuries. The heavily-financed lobbyists for the insurance industry, big corporations and pharmaceutical manufacturers took full advantage of the Republican control of the White House and Congress. Even though the voters have replaced Republicans in the Senate, House and White House with Democrats, the GOP continues to oppose legislation the majority of Americans need and want for the sake of their political contributors.
Just last week House GOP Leader John Boehner claimed over $100 billion a year could be saved by less defensive medicine being practiced if real medical malpractice reforms were passed. The CBO’s analysis proves his claims are nowhere close to being accurate but that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to say it. In an October 9 letter to Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf said the savings in the total national health care spending if limits on malpractice were enacted would amount to less than 0.5%. Even after the CBO report was released, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) continued the misinformation blitz on the Sunday talk shows. “Almost everybody agrees that we can save between $100 and $200 billion if we have effective medical malpractice reform,” he said.
Why should we continue to accept limitations on our rights just to protect the bottom line of wealthy corporations, insurance companies and manufacturers? We’ve given up too much already. The numbers don’t add up for the advocates of more tort reform so let’s make sure our legislators are hearing us and not just the loud, shrill and well-funded voices of those in the minority.
Richard J. Arsenault, 2011
