Posted on 10/19/2009 10:36:16 AM PDT by John Semmens
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) rejected the idea of incorporating tort reform into the health care legislation now under consideration. The issue arose when the Congressional Budget Office estimated that tort reform could reduce health care costs by $54 billion over the next decade.
“Look, $54 billion is a drop in the bucket for a program that will cost at least $2 trillion over the same period,” Reid observed. “The impact on the taxpayers will be inconsequential.”
Reid contrasted the “minuscule savings for taxpayers with the devastating impact that reducing tort costs would have on trial lawyers. The benefit for the average taxpayer would be less than $400. But the loss in income for the average trial lawyer would be in the hundreds of thousands, or more.”
The Senator contended that “the shock to those who have become accustomed to earning their livings through lawsuits would impose severe lifestyle changes on members of the legal profession. Requiring the few to suffer so much for the tiny gains of the many would, in my mind, be a gross inequity.”
(Excerpt) Read more at azconserv1.wordpress.com ...
Can’t you just see the ad?
Hey,vote for Harry Reid, he thinks 54 billion for lawyer fees is a drop in the bucket. Wonder how big his bucket is, eh?
All the reasons the senator gives looks like the very arguments I would make to push tort reform.
Well on that basis, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to “clean up waste and fraud” either. Since billions of dollars are just “a drop in the bucket” and they feel that they have endless (certainly will AFTER the health reform passes) access to our money.
The healtcare reform is lost. So everyone except unions, trial lawyers, and congress people have to sacrifice for the collective good? Uh huh.
Dear Mr. Senate Majority Leader:
YOU LIE.
Um no... the “poor” will not have to sacrifice, either.
You are wrong. He knows. AND HE LIES.
You forgot to include illegal aliens.
Ok, so this is satire.
Appropriate for Reid and the Dems.
We don’t need to have any cost savings ... we need to spend more.
Hey, Harry - 50 billion here and 50 billion there and soon you're talking about real money!
FWIW, the $54 billion is over 10 year period, or $5 billion per year. The $2 trillion is low for each year as the last years cost (2008) was $2.4 trillion. Do the math. Less than 1/2 of 1% of total costs. That includes all payouts, the good ones along with the “frivolous” ones.
“Tort reform” is nothing but a slogan to get the people riled up.
parsy, who keeps putting stakes in the heart of this vampire
I said “refuses to acknowledge”.
I did NOT say he doesn’t know.
So, the only way I’d be “wrong” is if he’d acknowledged” it somewhere.
But, yes, he lies.
I was imagining the ads put up by his Republican opposer, not realistically evaluating the financial details, brother parsy. Your numbers are quite right.
That being said, you are quite right that is the ads we will see and even worse. If “tort reform” could be put in a bottle, it would be guys in traveling medicine shows who would be hawking it.
parsy, who was born in the wagon of a medicine show
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