Tort reform not needed

We said it during the 2004 campaign as Bush bashed "traaal lawyers": Medical malpractice claims have nothing to do with medical costs.

Here's some new evidence to support our position. A pretty irony: It's from Texas.

Texas Study Casts Doubt on Need for Tort Reform

(Reuters) A study released on Thursday cast doubt on whether recent "tort reform" in Texas that limited payouts in medical malpractice lawsuits and is similar to what President Bush (news - web sites) wants nationally was really needed.
The study looked at Texas Department of Insurance records dating back to 1988 and found claims that medical costs were soaring because of too many malpractice lawsuits, the supposed reason for the reform, were not true.
"We find no evidence of the medical malpractice crisis that produced headlines over the last several years and led to legal reform in Texas and other states," said the study, conducted by law professors at the University of Texas, University of Illinois and Columbia University law schools.

W is going to need to turn on someone after his push on Social Security "reform" utterly fails; I like the chances that medical malpractice will be it, since it was a campaign promise and because it's straightforward to imagine how one could spin-shift the focus from Social Security (which has to do with the elderly) to medicine in general (which also has to do with the elderly) — allowing George to pretend that's where he'd been all along — and thence to malpractice claims in particular (which don't).

Watch this space for a story about W's two-stepping denial of published observations that kick his ass, made in his own state.

Don't mess with Texas.

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Tort reform not needed

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