Ridiculous. It’s never been easy fighting powerful polluters in Texas. A bill approved by a Senate committee today would make it even harder. With a big push from the Texas Chemical Council and the Texas Association of Business, the Senate Natural Resources Committee voted 6-3 today for legislation “streamlining” (read: weakening) the process that communities [...]
Posts Tagged ‘tort reform’
Fix what’s broken first
What Texas Watch says. Imagine this scenario. Texans are facing a physician shortage. Under-served rural and poor communities struggle to attract doctors to serve their needs. Politicians scramble to find a solution to the crisis. That is where we were 10 years ago. Things aren’t so different today. Back then, the lobbyists and political spinmeisters promised [...]
Judicial Q&A: Michele Petty
Note: As I have done in years past, I am conducting written Q&As with judicial candidates. This one is a little different in that the questions were originally asked by someone else, but the idea is the same. Further explanation after the post. 1. Please explain why voters should elect you over your opponent. Justice [...]
It all depends on what your definition of success is
By any objective measure, tort “reform” has been a failure. A new study found no evidence that health care costs in Texas dipped after a 2003 constitutional amendment limited payouts in medical malpractice lawsuits, despite claims made to voters by some backers of tort reform. The researchers, who include University of Texas law professor Charles [...]
Still more evidence that tort “reform” is a scam
Recently, I blogged about a Public Citizen report that documented the ways in which tort “reform”, specifically medical malpractice damage caps, are a scam that has done none of the things its backers promised. You might have read that and thought “sure, but Public Citizen is a lefty group, and so they would never have [...]
Tort “reform” is still a scam
I know, I’m as shocked as you are. A national report released Wednesday says the 2003 Texas law that limited damage awards in malpractice suits has caused health care spending to rise and has not significantly increased the number of doctors in Texas. [...] The 24-page report by Public Citizen, “A Failed Experiment,” says that [...]
Another point of order delays Eissler’s school bill
HB400, the bill by Rep. Rob Eissler that among other things raises the 22:1 student:teacher limit in grades K-4, came up for debate last night after the “sanctuary cities” bill got sidetracked by a point of order. Here was the original AP story about this bill going into the debate. Districts could increase class sizes, [...]
Spending money on medical students
I have two things to say about this story, which is about a budget rider that would concentrate the money the state spends on graduate medical residencies into the doctors’ first three years of training regardless of how long their residencies take to complete, which would have the effect of favoring general practitioners, who only [...]
Our healthcare system is great, if you ignore all those people who can’t afford it
State Rep. John Zerwas demonstrates that being a physician doesn’t make you qualified to talk about health care reform. His article is as embarrassingly idea-free as his national colleagues’ plan was. After the usual paean to tort “reform” and invective about government employees getting between you and your doctor – that’s what insurance companies are [...]
Committee assignment reactions
Rather than update the earlier post, I thought I’d do a new one rounding up various reactions to the committee assignments in the House. Matt says the Republican “Gang of 11″ won big, but Democrats got little respect. Phillip is somewhat more sanguine. He did a ton of number crunching and other analysis, and deserves [...]