![Reducing The Cost Of Health Care – For Real]()
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That title is not out of a fiction novel. It could happen right here in our time.
A few weeks ago, both the Obama Administration and the US House made major moves to begin limiting the outlandish awards being handed out by some juries in medical malpractice cases. This area has long been a trial lawyers’ playground and each of us is paying the price.
We may be making the right kind of progress now. The President included $250 million in his budget so that the Department of Justice could work with states to rewrite their medical malpractice laws and see real, effective change on this issue. The proposal provides some specific areas of relief by using judges with expertise in this area to decide cases instead of allowing juries to dole out unreasonable awards. Additional proposals might include creating reliable standards for doctors to operate under that would allow them to prove they were not negligent [...]
![Reducing The Cost Of Health Care – For Real]()
by lws
The world of modern American politics has often been described as “Hollywood for the ugly.†While this may or may not be true, politicians are indeed asking us to do what film directors do when we attend the movies—suspend disbelief. Removing reality and practicality certainly facilitates a good story and makes for fantastic special effects, but when these principles are used in running a government the results are, predictably, disastrous.
Though you wouldn’t think you would have to inform our elected officials of such things, the sad truth is that every non-creative discipline is subject to cumbersome, but necessary confines. In other words—reality.
This is true not only in the fields of engineering, architecture, aviation, music, and chemistry, but also in governing. The skill in any of these endeavors lies in achieving a desired result within the confines of a given discipline, and skill is precisely what is lacking in the vast majority of our Legislators. If you are an engineer or an architect you are constrained in your designs by pesky things such as physics, load bearing, and torque. In aviation you are constrained [...]
by Fersboo
Who would have thought that the state with the first Socialist governor and subsequent Socialist Party candidate for President, Robert LaFollette, would be the first state to actively attempt to bring the public employee unions under control? What’s next? ...
![Reducing The Cost Of Health Care – For Real]()
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The following is a guest piece by Stephen DeMaura, President of Americans for Job Security, a national conservative issue advocacy organization. For more than 10 years AJS has advocated for pro-growth, pro-jobs public policy to strengthen the American economy. -ed.
Make Room in the Market, Monsanto Monopoly
There’s a battle in agriculture that deserves a greater focus: The Seed Trait Wars.
What our families, our nation and the world will eat in the future depends in large part on the future of a robust, competitive biotech seed sector. Farmers and independent seed companies will need seeds with the genetic traits to deliver higher yields from the same land no matter the conditions. To do that we’ll need more competition.
It’s competition that drives innovation, better prices, and more choices, and competition that gives farmers the right seeds to grow what they need, where they need to grow it.
WORLDWIDE NEED IS MOUNTING
The world will need 70 percent more food in 2050 than it does today, according to the UN. Farmers will need the best seeds to grow the crops that will feed the increasing number of people that will populate this planet. And they’ll need [...]
![Reducing The Cost Of Health Care – For Real]()
by lws
A study of the National debt over the last thirty years proves that our Representatives are not responsible enough to continuing governing without the rules of the game being changed. Though much belabored, it bears repeating that the National Debt did not break the one trillion dollar threshold until the year 1982 and not until the fiscal year 2002 did it break six trillion. From 2002 to 2010 it more than doubled from $6.25 trillion to over $13 trillion dollars.
Changing the rules of the game in this case means the passing of some form of a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. This is far from a new idea and most people, especially newcomers to the world of politics, would be shocked at how close we have come, even recently, to achieving it. In the 90s alone constitutional amendments involving balancing the budget came to serious Congressional votes at least once in six different years—1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997. In ‘92, ‘94, and ‘97 the Balanced Budget Amendment came up only a handful of votes short of achieving the two-thirds majority needed in both Houses.
Without getting too much into the weeds it is significant to note that the amendment in 1992 was sponsored by a Democrat—Charles Stenholm of Texas. In the House it [...]
![Reducing The Cost Of Health Care – For Real]()
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If you've followed The Conservative Reader at all over the past few years, you've undoubtedly noticed that 2009 and 2010 were a bit light in content. Although we had started ramping up in 2009, we also got engaged in work with the Polk County Republican Party in Iowa. That work, along with other priorities, made it very difficult to provide timely commentary and updates on key topics. Since my term of office has concluded with the party, there is time to provide more frequent updates.
2011 will likely include a number of changes, all for the better I hope. The first change you should notice right away, especially if you are interested in Iowa politics. We've added a few new sections, and have links to those sections in our sidebar. They are:
As we receive updates in these [...]
That title is not out of a fiction novel. It could happen right here in our time.
A few weeks ago, both the Obama Administration and the US House made major moves to begin limiting the outlandish awards being handed out by some juries in medical malpractice cases. This area has long been a trial lawyers’ playground and each of us is paying the price.
We may be making the right kind of progress now. The President included $250 million in his budget so that the Department of Justice could work with states to rewrite their medical malpractice laws and see real, effective change on this issue. The proposal provides some specific areas of relief by using judges with expertise in this area to decide cases instead of allowing juries to dole out unreasonable awards. Additional proposals might include creating reliable standards for doctors to operate under that would allow them to prove they were not negligent [...]
