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IT'S A CRISIS!!!!! That's how George W. Bush begins to get what he wants by scaring us into thinking that if we don't give it to him we'll all die. This time it's his phony quest to put caps on medical malpractice damages. The $250,000 is a cap he wants placed on non-economic damages. Doctors, he tells us, are quitting practice because of lawsuits. Excuse me. Look around at all the huge medical facilities being built. That's the biggest industry where I live.

What's he really trying to do is twofold. First, Karl Rove wants to dry up trial lawyer contributions to Democrats by cutting off their fees. Second, Bush is in the pocket of corporate America and so wants to enrich this sector.

I have great relations with my doctors. I have sympathy for their working under the threat of lawsuit. However unlike other developed nations, America doesn't have another way to make victims whole when they are destroyed by negligent medical treatment. Thus in the U.S., lawsuits are institutionalized as the only way to take care of such victims. Bush and Rove don't have any other plans to make these people whole again, but only to accomplish their goals of shutting down lawyer contributions to Democrats and to enrich pharmaceutical, insurances and HMO companies.

01.09.05