| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | CONTACT: | Darren McKinney dmckinney@atra.org 202-682-0084 |
Washington, DC, August 26, 2009 -- As the special guest of Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) at a town hall meeting last evening, former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, an outspoken advocate for evolving health care legislation, candidly responded to an audience member’s question about the bill’s lack of tort reform.
“The reason tort reform is not in the [health care] bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on. And that’s the plain and simple truth,” Dean told a boisterous crowd of about 2,500 assembled at South Lakes High School in Reston, Virginia. (Click to listen for yourself.)
Referencing a recent analysis of campaign contributions by the Washington Examiner, American Tort Reform Association director of communications Darren McKinney today expanded on Dean’s allusion to the trial bar’s influence over the congressional majority.
“With virtually all of the generous campaign contributions from personal injury lawyers now flowing to Democrats at the federal level, it seems rather clear that those dominating the health care bill- writing process have a motivation to resist the inclusion of medical liability reforms,” McKinney observed.
“And while it’s bad enough that none of the health care bills thus far contains any commonsense tort reforms,” McKinney continued, “it’s absolutely incredible that H.R. 3200, in particular, actually contains several ‘trial lawyer earmarks’ that would boost trial lawyer profits.
“The Speaker of the House recently inveighed against the ‘immoral profits’ of certain insurance companies, but it would appear that neither she nor most of her colleagues in the majority have a problem with litigation industry profits.
“Howard Dean, a former physician who presumably knows something about meritless medical malpractice lawsuits, and forthright political strategist Bob Beckel are the only nationally prominent Democrats who have been willing, so far, to stand up to the trial bar. Some lesser known Blue Dogs, such as Rep. Allan Boyd of Florida, have voiced support for tort reform during town hall meetings. But congressional leaders aren’t likely to be swayed, unless the White House intervenes and makes good on President Obama’s statement to the American Medical Association in June, indicating that he’s willing to consider tort reforms as part of a final health care package,” McKinney concluded.
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The American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) is the only national organization dedicated exclusively to tort and liability reform through public education and the enactment of legislation. ATRA's membership includes non profits, small and large companies, as well as state and national trade, business, and professional associations.
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