Neal Boortz
Friday, Aug. 3, 2001

Democrats are royally ticked! They are beside themselves! And just why are the leftists so upset? Were any of the real patient protections in the bill removed or modified? No, they weren’t

The Democrats are upset because the Patients’ Bill of Rights may not now accomplish what the Democrats wanted it to accomplish. The bill was never about new private health care rights for patients. It was all about moving the United States closer to nationalized – government-controlled – health care.

To Democrats the primary provision of the Patients’ Bill of Rights was the part that allowed patients to sue HMOs and employers for millions of dollars. The Democrats wanted a cap of $5 million, and they wanted those suits to be tried in state courts where trial lawyers have a better chance of finding high-award juries. Furthermore, the Democrats wanted the patients to be able to bring these suits without any review of their claim at all. The plan was to create so much fear among employers – and to boost the cost of HMO health plans to such an extent – that thousands of employers would just throw up their hands and cancel all health coverage for their employees.

Think about it. You’re an employer providing health coverage to your employees. Suddenly you have a contingent $5 million liability for each employee if something goes wrong with their health care. What are you going to do? I’ll tell you what you will do, if you are a good businessman. You are going to cancel your health coverage for your employees and just increase their pay by an amount equal to what you were paying for health care.

Now, you would think that the employee would then be able to just take that money and buy their own policy, wouldn’t you? Well, hold on! The Democrats took care of that eventuality too. They recently defeated a Republican proposal to allow employees to deduct the cost of health insurance on their income tax. Employers can deduct the cost, individuals cannot. When you’re trying to create chaos in health care, you don’t want to do anything that could possibly make it easier for individuals to carry their own health insurance policies. Independent individuals are dangerous to statist dreams.

Well – the new bill hits the Democrats on all of these fronts. It reduces the pain and suffering awards to a $1.5 million cap, provides for a review system before these suits can be filed, and adds additional protection for private employers.

Trial lawyers, as you know, are a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party. A full 90 percent of campaign contributions from personal injury and medical malpractice trial lawyers go to Democrats. This money comes from the huge amounts of money these trial lawyers make from their contingency fee arrangements. The lower the awards, the lower the fees. The lower the fees, the less money you have to donate to Democrats. Yet another reason Democrats are so outraged!

Some simple math here. Let’s lowball it and say that a typical medical malpractice lawsuit would cost $500,000 to prosecute. The lawyer is going to have a contract with the client stating that the costs of the lawsuit will come out of the proceeds – then the lawyers will take 40 percent or more of what’s left. If your limit in pain and suffering damages is $5 million, that would leave about $1.8 million for the lawyer after all is said and done. Reduce the cap to $1.5 million and the lawyer’s take suddenly shrinks to $400,000. Quite frankly, that’s not enough for the high-powered Democratic Party donors to go after.

Fewer lawsuits, less chaos. Less chaos, fewer constituents demanding solutions from their elected officials. The Democrats were looking for the resulting chaos to produce demands for more government involvement in health care. Their goal is complete and total nationalization – and their goal has been pushed back by George W. Bush.

No wonder they’re pissed!

Teachers Unions Aren’t Going to Stand for Much More of This

We are nearing 1 million school children in this country being home-schooled. By and large these children are being taught by parents with college educations and they’re learning more than the poor kids suffering through government school indoctrination/education.

Teachers unions are not going to stand still for this much longer. The home-schooling movement presents two severe threats to these most powerful of unions. First, it showcases the incompetence of government education, and second, it presents a clear threat to government teacher jobs. There are already pressures being brought on some colleges and universities to deny admission to home-schooled students.

Why All the Celebration? It Was His Second Choice

Did you see all of this celebration in Harlem earlier this week when Clinton showed up at his new office digs? Don’t these people realize that Clinton’s first choice was a posh million-dollar-per-year office in the heart of Manhattan near Carnegie Hall? How in the hell can so many people not see that they’re being pandered too? I guess when it goes on so long you just get used to it.

The Mary Sheila Gall Nomination

Mary Sheila Gall has been serving on the Consumer Product Safety Commission for some time now. Her service may be done. A Senate committee has voted to reject her nomination to head the CPSC. The fight against Gall was led by Hitlary Clinton. Why? Well, Hitlary says that Gall voted against some child safety issues – and that just won’t do.

OK, let’s review. In 97 percent of the cases since she came to the commission, Gall voted in favor of new consumer protection regulations. Gall has been unanimously confirmed to the CPSC by the full Senate not once, but twice.

The last time Gall was nominated, it was by Bill Clinton.

The Gall votes Hitlary complains of came before her last nomination and confirmation.

Bottom line – this is purely a Hillary Clinton/Democratic Party "get Bush” procedure. Gall is being trashed not because she isn’t qualified for the post, but because she was nominated (this time) by a Republican.

The Senate is sending a message to Bush: "We will trash your nominees for purely partisan reasons.”

Neal Boortz is the hugely popular nationally syndicated radio host.