My Opinion

I remember when the year 1984 actually came and went. There materialized no “Big Brother,” no totalitarian state, no thought police. I was 18 and optimistic and thought I would never have reason to revisit that worry.

That was then, as the saying goes, and this is now. Just as George Orwell's dictators did, the right is using “double speak” to warp discussion of important issues. Big Brother is here after all, and he has friends.

The President and his friends form the true “axis of evil” in this nation, one created by the unholy trinity of Republican domination of the law-making process coupled with an almost surreal campaign of misinformation. The whole is anchored by the insurance industry, an engine of greed and unprincipled behavior without any sense of shame. H.R. 5, a law that severely limits the rights of victims of medical malpractice and that slipped through the House without the debate and exposure it deserved because of current distractions, represents another nail in the coffin of the American jury system. Yet that unique American institution ought to command the ultimate respect from a party that claims the misnomer “conservative” and claims to champion states' rights and small government. Republicans are quite the activists, lately, aren't they?

As outrageous as this assault in the guise of “reform” is on its face, however, it's all the more reprehensible because there is no justification for it. Caps on awards didn't work in California. Premiums continued to rise after caps were enacted. Consistent with the dirty little secret of the unholy trinity – that the medical malpractice “crisis” is really just insurance industry greed – rates only fell in California after mandatory rate reductions became law.

Only one in eight cases of medical malpractice is pursued. The median payout for those is only about $125,000, and the number of payouts has remained flat since the mid-1980s. Bear in mind that this “crisis” happened after the horrific costs to the insurance industry came home to roost post-Sept. 11, not in the mid-1980s. When you couple that with most professionals' premium increases after Sept. 11 without the “crisis” nonsense, one obtains the impression that a shell game is taking shape.

In fact, insurance industry executives admit that premium rates rise and fall with the state of the economy, not as a result of litigation. This makes sense when you realize that malpractice premiums represent less than 1 percent of total health-care costs. With that ratio, we could outlaw medical malpractice, and the costs of health care would not change much. And whatever the costs of the health-care system, profits of the top 16 publicly traded health insurance companies still rose almost 75% during 2001-2002. Let us weep for the poor, embattled insurance executives.Yet if those are the real numbers – and they are – then how can we explain H.R. 5? The same way one explains any crime: by looking for a motive. Here's one: the insurance industry contributed just short of $50 million to Republicans during the 2000 and 2002 elections. Here's another: some Republican legislators responsible for this travesty have not only substantial stock interests in insurance companies, they have relatives serving as executives in them. Too, just as the elite in Orwell's novel enjoyed rights denied to the “proles” over whom the elite ruled, the architects and pom-pom wavers of H.R. 5 seem to reserve for their corporate clients and their own families unfettered access to the court system they would deny everyone else. Has anyone heard of any initiative to limit corporate America's access to the court system?

Mr. President, every year medical mistakes kill 100,000 of the Americans you claim to love. One of these days, even the people who supported you are going to realize that in the battle between insurance industry greed and lives like Jessica Santilla's – lives like theirs and their families' — there's your side … And the just side.

I remember when the year 1984 actually came and went. There materialized no “Big Brother,” no totalitarian state, no thought police. I was 18 and optimistic and thought I would never have reason to revisit that worry.

That was then, as the saying goes, and this is now. Just as George Orwell's dictators did, the right is using “double speak” to warp discussion of important issues. Big Brother is here after all, and he has friends.

The President and his friends form the true “axis of evil” in this nation, one created by the unholy trinity of Republican domination of the law-making process coupled with an almost surreal campaign of misinformation. The whole is anchored by the insurance industry, an engine of greed and unprincipled behavior without any sense of shame. H.R. 5, a law that severely limits the rights of victims of medical malpractice and that slipped through the House without the debate and exposure it deserved because of current distractions, represents another nail in the coffin of the American jury system. Yet that unique American institution ought to command the ultimate respect from a party that claims the misnomer “conservative” and claims to champion states' rights and small government. Republicans are quite the activists, lately, aren't they?

As outrageous as this assault in the guise of “reform” is on its face, however, it's all the more reprehensible because there is no justification for it. Caps on awards didn't work in California. Premiums continued to rise after caps were enacted. Consistent with the dirty little secret of the unholy trinity – that the medical malpractice “crisis” is really just insurance industry greed – rates only fell in California after mandatory rate reductions became law.

Only one in eight cases of medical malpractice is pursued. The median payout for those is only about $125,000, and the number of payouts has remained flat since the mid-1980s. Bear in mind that this “crisis” happened after the horrific costs to the insurance industry came home to roost post-Sept. 11, not in the mid-1980s. When you couple that with most professionals' premium increases after Sept. 11 without the “crisis” nonsense, one obtains the impression that a shell game is taking shape.

In fact, insurance industry executives admit that premium rates rise and fall with the state of the economy, not as a result of litigation. This makes sense when you realize that malpractice premiums represent less than 1 percent of total health-care costs. With that ratio, we could outlaw medical malpractice, and the costs of health care would not change much. And whatever the costs of the health-care system, profits of the top 16 publicly traded health insurance companies still rose almost 75% during 2001-2002. Let us weep for the poor, embattled insurance executives.Yet if those are the real numbers – and they are – then how can we explain H.R. 5? The same way one explains any crime: by looking for a motive. Here's one: the insurance industry contributed just short of $50 million to Republicans during the 2000 and 2002 elections. Here's another: some Republican legislators responsible for this travesty have not only substantial stock interests in insurance companies, they have relatives serving as executives in them. Too, just as the elite in Orwell's novel enjoyed rights denied to the “proles” over whom the elite ruled, the architects and pom-pom wavers of H.R. 5 seem to reserve for their corporate clients and their own families unfettered access to the court system they would deny everyone else. Has anyone heard of any initiative to limit corporate America's access to the court system?

Mr. President, every year medical mistakes kill 100,000 of the Americans you claim to love. One of these days, even the people who supported you are going to realize that in the battle between insurance industry greed and lives like Jessica Santilla's – lives like theirs and their families' — there's your side … And the just side.