Bobert: You are the one that brought health insurance into the discussion. Now you object to the topic calling it a red herring. You threw in the red herring.

As you can see from the chart. Health insurance was climibng under the Clinton administration. It has risen an average of 13.3% for the last nine years.

It is another example of your blame it on Bush agenda.

Depending on which trial lawyer organization you find they calim it is only 1 or 2 percent. Do ya think thay have a dog in the fight? Yep, their whole livelyhood depends on it,

By the way I got two ex union bros in law who have been waiting 15 years or so for a big class action settlement on asbestos. They haven't gotten a dime but the lawyers are doing OK. There ain't a damned thing wrong with either one of them. The suit is about the possibility that they might develop something.

Meanwhile the people that are really sick from asbestosis can't get a dime because the lawyers have it all tied up for their own benefit. What a bunch of vultures.

Addressing the New Health Care Crisis:
Reforming the Medical Litigation System to Improve the Quality of Health Care
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
March 3, 2003

...Americans spend far more per person on the costs of litigation than any other country in the world. The excesses of the litigation system are an important contributor to "defensive medicine"--medical treatments provided for the purpose of avoiding litigation. Doctors' insurance premiums are increasing at a rapid rate, particularly in states that have not taken steps to make their legal systems function more predictably and effectively. Some doctors cannot obtain insurance despite having never had a single malpractice judgment or even faced a claim. As multimillion-dollar jury awards have become more common in recent years, these problems have reached crisis proportions.

This is a threat to health care quality for all Americans. Increasingly, Americans are at risk of not being able to find a doctor when they most need one. Doctors have given up their practices, limited their practices to patients who do not have health conditions that are more likely to lead to lawsuits, or have moved to states with a fairer legal system where insurance can be obtained at a lower price. In addition, excessive litigation is impeding efforts to improve quality of care. Hospitals, doctors, and nurses are reluctant to report problems and participate in joint efforts to improve care because they fear being dragged into lawsuits, even if they did nothing wrong.

This broken system of litigation also is raising the cost of health care that all Americans pay, through out-of-pocket payments, insurance premiums, and taxes.

Judgments for very large amounts of non-economic damages in a small proportion of cases and the settlements they influence are driving this litigation crisis. At the same time, most injured patients receive no compensation. The current litigation system hurts everyone--injured patients and Americans seeking high-quality care. The only ones who benefit are those who operate the system--particularly the trial lawyers who bring these cases and those who defend them. Some states have already taken action to squeeze the excesses out of the litigation system. But federal action, in conjunction with further action by states, is essential to help Americans get high-quality care when they need it, at a more affordable cost...