What Gingrich and Perry neglected to mention is that Texas is a disaster for the uninsured

I'm sure it just slipped their minds. An innocent oversight as it were.

Lawsuits are always frivolous until you need to sue someone.

Just like health insurance is always grand until you need to use it.

Tort reform has long been a conversation ender for me.

Is there any evidence that the removal of the threat of being sued has made any difference in the way Texas doctors treat their patients or prescribe "unnecessary" test?

Newt Gingrich is the Future of the Republican Party.

At least our Liberal Media pointed out all these facts, to make sure people weren't fooled by their lies.

It's a shame Rick Perry, who's built his brand within Texan by executing factually innocent constituents (see Todd Willingham), didn't see fit to share his thoughts on Death Panels.

Well, yes, but any death penalty advocate will helpfully remind you that Willingham was drinking at the bar and wasn't a very good father, so it really doesn't matter whether he committed murder or not. It's hard to muster up much empathy for someone who so obviously had it coming.

Incidentally, what makes the imaginary death panels so scary to conservatives is that they get to deem Grandma unworthy to keep on living!

Much of [medical malpractice insurance] savings has gone into expanding health-care services in low-income neighborhoods.

How much? They don't say.

Incidentally, this expanding health care justification for so-called tort reform is a new one. Tort reform advocates used to argue that tort reform would reduce unnecessary procedures and, therefore, reduce our premiums. But the savings that health care providers enjoyed weren't passed on to Texans via fewer unnecessary tests and procedures or, ultimately, lower premiums. In fact, while the cost of malpractice insurance took a dive as a result of these so-called tort reforms, health insurance premiums in Texas increased as fast or faster than premiums in most other states -- not exactly an ideal way to expand health care services.

Basically what Gingrich and Perry are arguing is that if you help save the for-profit hospitals some money via tort reform, then they'll spend a little of that savings to give you a vaccination or two in a free clinic somewhere once you fall into the low-income category as a result of your enormous health care bills.

It's these pesky details that get Gingrich and Perry every time.

unfortunately its wishful thinking that the cretinous lying wingnuts ever pay a price for their lies and dissembling - US corporate media has their backs, making sure Americans never get those pesky details.

Gingrich (a disgraced former Speaker who shut down the government 14 years ago, in part over cutting Medicare)

And in part because (as he perceived it) Bill Clinton was mean to him (http://tinyurl.com/y8qqba2).

It's funny to me they're stretching so hard to use the word "mandate" in this particular specific way. Doubly funny because this bill already has something widely known as a "mandate" in a totally different sense than they use this word.

Texas has been attracting doctors, but the rate of increase in the Medical Society investigations suggests Texas has become a magnet for medical incompetents.

I question the bit about malpractice premiums going down at all. I think the man was flat out lying. I've read too many articles in places like the Texas Observer saying that premiums are no different from states without tort reform.

And also they neglected to mention that among Perry's cost savings mechanism is that Texas has the lowest percent of SCHIP eligible kids actually enrolled of any state in the nation. Perry has done everything possible to prevent eligible people from signing up for state health benefits. For instance, to be eligible for state health benefits you have to make less than 20% of the poverty level (Texas Observer.)

All this while Texas is ground zero for diabetes, hypertension, petrochemical cancers.

I am curious.

Of the 25% of Texas who lack medical insurane what percentage of those have been denied medical care, when needed?

Meaning, a lack of medical insurance does not mean, per se, a lack of medical care.

I am sure this has been studied.

With regard to tort reform, are you philosophically in favor of it? How do supporters of the status quo deal with these facts?
(1) The medical malpractice system tortures the medical profession. Most physicians drawn in are innocent. They are release, but perhaps after months or years of expense and anguish. Sound fair?
(2) We are wasting billions of $$$ on defensive medicine.
(3) Defensive medicine exposes patients to unnecessary risks of complications.
(4) Most victims of medical negligence are missed entirely.

Still think we don't need legal reform? See www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com under Legal Quality.

Of the 25% of Texas who lack medical insurane what percentage of those have been denied medical care, when needed?

Meaning, a lack of medical insurance does not mean, per se, a lack of medical care.

Well, yes, it does, Dudley, actually. You see, ERs aren't set up to do anything but stabilize the patient. They don't provide long-term care for disease -- particularly complex diseases like diabetes and cancer -- and they certainly don't provide preventive care. They also present the patient with a bill -- far larger than the one he or she would get from a doctor and minus the discount an insurer would get for the same services -- which the patient then has to pay. It's not "free" to anyone: after the unable-to-pay patient's credit rating's been destroyed, we all end up footing the bill for his or her very short-term care.

How much medical care do you think the uninsured seek under those circumstances? How many non-emergency trips to the doctor do you think an uninsured patient is going to make when paying cash for them is an impossibility?

It's time for you and your buddies to stop pretending that anything but the most stopgap and cursory medical care is available to people who don't have insurance. It's extremely offensive that at this stage of the game you still don't know this or are determined to deny it.

How do supporters of the status quo deal with these facts?

Okay, you've got your tort reform. It's all yours. Now -- how do you deal with the fact that this affects less than 2 percent of the cost of healthcare and the rest of the system is still broken? And what are we to make of the fact that your concern about doctors' costs doesn't seem to extend to the patients you pledged to serve?

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