Sunday, January 10, 2010

Overlawyered

Lawyer: Man who slipped on cruise ship deserves every penny of $9.5 million
puke

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

Suicide Kit

Lawyer Insurance

Lawyer Insurance

Curmudgeonly & Skeptical

Democrats hate the insurance industry.  Hate its guts. Yet their partnership with the ambulance chaser wing of the American Bar Association, and an inherent inability to understand the profit aspect of the business model, have made the industry integral to daily life, and a recession (if not gummint)  proof  business.

It's not unusual for yearly automobile insurance premiums to exceed the cost of the "preowned" junker being insured.  Not when the potential cost of a fender bender  includes the price of a trip to Lourdes and a miracle neck injury cure.  The state helps out by making insuring yourself  against lawyers a condition of driving.  For a while, there were attempts across the land towards No Fault insurance.  Who complained?  Lawyers.  Their television blitz against any No Fault  legislation rivaled anything Billy Mays ever launched.

Health insurance rates also skyrocketed, as physicians were forced to cover themselves against malpractice suits.  Medical doctors must purchase extremely expensive lawyer insurance, which cost is passed to the patient.  That insurance will require them to order exhaustive  CYA tests on stuff that used to warrant iodine and a Band Aid. More cost.

This recently happened to me.

I've had a sore in the middle of my back for weeks;  it causes a periodic shooting pain  I asked Doc to look at it during my last visit.  He said it looked  like a clogged pore, commonly known as a pimple, or an ingrown hair, but didn't look infected.  End of exam.  Last night it killed.  I bitched to MoSup this morning that he should have treated it then and there.  She said, he's not a surgeon.  I said, so what, he's a physician.  She said, yeah, but he's required  to refer you to a surgeon who would submit a biopsy specimen. I'm not making this up.

Now I read that the Democrat House leadership have given up on getting the Obamacare government option.  Which is good (but stop me here if I'm missing something).  But, this trillion dollar - for starters- monstrosity of a healthcare bill that nobody wants will do what?  It will add 30-40 million currently uninsured people into the pool, and force  them to buy insurance from ... insurance companies.  At the same time, Obamaiacs are screaming bloody murder over this greater insurance industry presence in health care.  Pelosi will announce plans to punish them for this.  Are you following?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats told President Barack Obama in recent meetings they want the legislation to strip the insurance industry of a long-standing exemption from federal antitrust laws, officials said. That provision is in the House-passed measure, but was omitted from the bill that the Senate passed on Christmas Eve.

They also want the final measure to include a House-passed proposal for a nationwide insurance exchange, to be regulated by the federal government, where consumers could shop for private coverage. The Senate bill calls for a state-based system of exchanges.

Additionally, House Democrats want to require insurers to spend a minimum amount of premium income on benefits, thereby limiting what is available for salaries, bonuses, advertising and other items. The House bill sets the floor at 85 percent; the Senate-passed measure lowers it to 80 percent for policies sold to small groups and individuals.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are private.


But, there's room for hope. Poll: Republican Brown Leads 48-47 in Mass. Senate Race  Even the threat of a Republican taking Ted Kennedy's senate seat indicates what's in store for the Democrat party ten months hence. A win by Brown would make a Republican senate majority possible, maybe even plausible.

Choo Choo Kazoo

A Cultural Moment




SondraK