Dan Frisa
Tuesday, June 19, 2001

That’s it plain and simple. (See McKainnedy Plan to Raise Patients' Bills.)

On the actual health-care issues there is agreement by the president and the Congress. The major areas covered by the various proposals have similar provisions to guarantee emergency service and access to medical specialists. That, in sum, is the essence of the medical portion of the legislation.

And that is also where the sides diverge in their purposes in the remainder of the bill.

Rather than a patients' bill of rights, the Democratic proposal being pushed by Sen. John McCain, ?-Ariz., is a means of providing millions of dollars in fees to the nation's trial lawyers.

In fact, one of the most prodigious beneficiaries of huge jury awards, even under existing law, is another co-sponsor of this bill, Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who financed his Senate campaign with millions of dollars in legal fees collected in medical malpractice lawsuits.

That raises several interesting ethical questions.

First, how is it that McCain condones the "big money" spent by his co-sponsor at the same time he rails against the undue influence of just such kinds of campaigns? Not to mention Edwards' glaring conflict of interest by participating in the issue at all.

Seems like rather convenient hypocrisy, does it not?

Second, the McKainnedy health-care bill will further increase the already unseemly flow of lawyers' campaign cash to Democrats. (Election records show that virtually all of the lawyers' millions in campaign cash goes to Democrats.)

Again, how can McCain square this with his professed distaste for the evils of special interest money?

He can't. Period. Because he's a hypocrite through and through.

So there it is. The McKainnedy health-care bill will drive up the cost of health care to the average American because of the unjustifiable provisions which encourage more lawsuits and higher awards and will also result, ultimately, in fewer providers, which will also drive up costs.

While President Bush strongly supports the unfettered right of patients to pursue legal action when a wrong has been committed, he is wise enough to realize that sky's-the-limit lawsuits for non-economic damages that serve to enrich lawyers does nothing good for patients, but amounts instead to nothing more than "patients' bills out of sight."

E-mail Dan: danfrisa@newsmax.com.

Dan Frisa represented New York in the United States Congress and served four terms in the New York State Assembly.

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