Glenn spoke yesterday about poor Helen about having had it with being in he hospital. His comments about being in the hospital long periods of time is right on the mark. It's called ICU psychosis. Basically, the longer you are in the ICU [specifically, and hospital generally], the crazier you get. It happened to my father, when he was in the hospital for nine weeks following cancer surgery in 1992. He just got further and further away from us, to the point where a family friend [and doctor] told us to get him out, no matter what, or he was going to die. We did, and he didn't.

Being in the hospital sucks.

We now have a new law that restricts class action lawsuits, further limiting the rights of people to be compensated for their injuries. The Houston Chronicle, in our president's back yard, is critical of the legislation. The Chronicle's point: what happened to the concepts of limiting federal power, espoused by the republicans? Good question. My answer is that the Republicans never really believed that stuff; they say whaever they need to in advancing ther own agenda. Thus, if it serves their purpose to say "get government out of peoples' lives," they take that tack. When they want something in line witht their iedologu, all of a sudden restrictive legislation that takes perennially state matters out the states' hands becomes perfectly acceptable. Logically inconsistent, but ideologically useful.

Now that class actions are out of the way, it's back to this ridiculous effort to limit, first medical malpractice lawsuits, and ultimately all lawsuits for damages. Here are some interesting truths demonstrating that caps on damages and other limitations as proposed by the Administration do not reduce healthcare costs. Read the whole report, but here are some bullet points:

Despite caps on damages enacted in 19 states, most insurers continued to increase premiums for doctors at a rapid pace, regardless of caps.

States with caps on damages have premiums on average 9.8% higher that states that do not have caps.

Past and present medical malpractice judgments/settlements do not seem to be the driving force behind increases in premiums.

California doctors' premiums rose 450% in the 13 years after passage of caps on damages, and did not go down until California passed, by referendum, insurance reform.

The state of Texas's passed caps on damages in 2003. Its second largest insurer has now requested a 19% increase in premiums, stating that caps do not lead to any significant savings.

Modern Physician: "The real drivers of the rise in premiums over the past four years have been low interest rates, a sour national economy and the legacy of overly aggressive pricing policies in the years before the ‘crisis’ began in late 2000. . . ."

Many of those who support medical malpractice caps – even many tort reform “experts” and insurance company executives, admit that caps will not significantly lower premiums.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that caps will not significantly reduce overall healthcare costs.

Even the Budget Submitted by the Bush Administration – the Administration’s FY ’05 Budget did not state any savings as a result of caps.

"Insurance was cheaper in the 1990s because insurance companies knew that they could take a doctor's premium and invest it, and $50,000 would be worth $200,000 five years later when the claim came in. An insurance company today can't do that." (Victor Schwartz, general counsel to the American Tort Reform Association, "Dose of Legality," Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 20, 2003).

The number of physicians has risen in every state every year over the last 3 years (of available data – 2000–2002), and the numbers of physicians are higher in every state than they were in 1996. (American Medical Association, “Physician Characteristics and Distribution in the U.S.,” 2003-2004 edition)

In studies done in 1995 and 2004, the median plaintiff award in tort cases has dropped from $50,000 in the 1990s to $37,000 by 2001. (www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/civil.htm#state; University of Chicago Law Review, Winter 1998). Between 1992 and 2001 the number of jury trials with punitive damages remained stable (4% to 6%) and the median punitive damage award decreased slightly from $63,000 to $50,000. (Civil Trial Cases and Verdicts in Large Counties, 2001, Thomas H. Cohen, Steven K. Smith, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004).

The General Counsel for the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) – admitted that so-called “frivolous” malpractice cases are “very rare.”

In August 2003, tort reform advocates, including insurance industry executives, were forced to admit their arguments lacked merit after they were placed under oath by the Florida Senate Judiciary Committee. The St. Petersburg Times reported: “The Senate Judiciary Committee, frustrated by the conflicting information given it by different interest groups, discredited much of the medical malpractice rhetoric by placing witnesses under oath. Suddenly, there were no frivolous lawsuits and
Florida was a profitable place for insurance companies to do business after all.” (St. Petersburg Times, 8/17/03)

The bottom line is that this whole "reform" effort is nothing more than a shell game by Big Insurance and the chambers of commerce, in the hopes that a not-well-understood issue slides past the public's eye. It's much harder to undo something that has already been done. Which is exactly what they're trying to do.

Courtesy of my very good friend, Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds, I've got a quote in the Wall Street Journal [see third paragraph from end]. He's a firecracker, that Glenn!

The quote itself is correct, if incomplete. What I said more fully was that by shoving worker's compensation "reform" down our collective throats, he sold down the river not only lawyers like me, but more importantly, the clients whom we represent. That, of course, is the implicit point of Bredesen's worker's compensation "reform" package: to discourage claims by reducing benefits [and resulting attorney's fees], which disinclines lawyers from taking the case, and disinclines the claimant from pursuing benefits because they are so low, relatively speaking. I have had many lawyers here in Knoxville tell me that they will not take any new worker's compensation cases, because there is no way for them to make any profit from the representation. Altruism aside, we do have to make a living. My firm and I still accept meritorious worker's compensation cases, however.

As to Bredesen, there's an old political saw that goes something like this: "he's a bum, but at least he's our bum." The problem with Bredesen is that while his party affiliation is Democrat, he sure has been acting like a Republican. So maybe he's not "our" bum, after all.

Very disturbing news about the Catholic Church's and Pope Pius XII's role in the aftermath of the Holocaust:

The latest scandal to rock the Catholic Church, causing a storm in Italy and elsewhere, follows a familiar pattern: first the crime, then the cover-up. It concerns whether the Church kidnapped Jewish children after the Holocaust and has at its center, yet again, Pius XII, the pope that the Church appears determined to make into a saint despite his criminal role during the Holocaust and, we now learn, quite probably afterward. A Church document of October 23, 1946, recently disclosed in Corriere della Sera, contains papal orders for the French Church forbidding the return of entire classes of Jewish children entrusted to Church institutions during the Holocaust. . . . "If the [Jewish] children have been entrusted [to the Church] by their parents, and if the parents now claim them back, they can be returned, provided the children themselves have not been baptized. It should be noted that this decision of the Congregation of the Holy Office has been approved by the Holy Father."

It took almost 60 years for this scandal to come to light, and while an investigation is warranted, it is unlikely to happen. Given Pius XII's deplorable record during World War II -- "systematically spreading hatred and bigotry against a people while they are being persecuted and slaughtered . . . . approving Nazified race laws persecuting an entire people . . . . failing to command bishops and priests subject to his absolute authority not to participate in the deportations of tens of thousands of people to their deaths . . . . ordering a policy of kidnapping children . . . from people who had been through the Nazi" -- any reasonable person, Catholic or otherwise, must wonder why in the name of all that's holy the Church wants to make a saint out of this man.

The leader of the free world is out to settle some scores:

Sounds like ole George is on to something, doesn't it? And even if he isn't, what's to like about lawyers, anyway?

Well, sad to say, ole George has let us down. He's right that physicians are hit hard these days with insurance costs. And trial lawyers do love to sue them,sometimes frivolously. But there's another player in this drama he overlooked: the insurance industry and it's not clear why. George W. isn't dumb, as Democrats like to say, but he's not the brightest bulb on the Washington Christmas tree either. So maybe he just forgot. Or maybe he found the facts inconvenient.

A study by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, using the experience in California and statistics developed by the federal government's auditing office, makes the case that capping jury awards has had little impact on malpractice insurance rates. What works best, the foundation found, is tighter regulation of the insurance industry.

****

Why does Bush ignore this aspect of the problem? No mystery there. It's politics. This is the most blatantly political administration in Washington in decades, and the trial lawyers are viewed by the Bush-Cheney crowd as simply Democratic auxiliaries. Not without reason, one should add. The trial lawyers have been big sugar daddies for the Democrats for more than a decade.

Bush, the politician, has an understandable beef with the tort bar. But Bush, as a proper president, isn't allowed that luxury. As chief magistrate and the people's tribune, he was elected to solve problems like this, not to indulge petty political peeves. Make no mistake, the physicians' growing insurance burden is a crisis. But it can't be resolved without recognizing the insurance industry as part of the problem.

The industry likes to claim it loses money on malpractice coverage. And some companies undoubtedly do. But on the whole, the industry is profitable beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. Moreover, the opportunity for cooking the books is greater in the insurance dodge than in almost any other line of work. The industry is not subject to federal regulation; indeed, it's exempt even from antitrust laws.

****

This contest involves some of the wealthiest segments of American society and the least regulated: the physicians' lobby, the plaintiffs' bar and the insurance industry. But the greatest potential losers in the struggle are ordinary Americans who need dependable physician care and legal redress when that care is shoddy. They look to the president for help in providing it.

In using the crisis to settle a political score with the trial lawyers, Bush is guilty of presidential malpractice.

He hit the nail on the head.

Robert Landauer:

Bush chose the Illinois site [to redirect his attack, this time to benefit the insurance industry] because "(a) recent study ranked Madison County the number one place in the country for trial lawyers to sue" -- the nation's worst "judicial hellhole," the American Tort Reform Association called it, followed by neighboring St. Clair County. Health care professionals should be fighting illnesses, not "junk lawsuits," Bush declared.

A closer look at the numbers by lawyers, advocacy groups and news reporters presents a less alarming picture locally. Also, analyses by the Congressional Budget Office indicate that Bush's legislative prescriptions won't cut medical costs any more than a tummy tuck will cure a runny nose.

Of nearly 700 malpractice/wrongful death suits filed in Madison County between 1996 and 2003, only 14 resulted in verdicts. Only six of those favored the plaintiffs. Of those six, only one was large enough to be affected by the president's proposed $250,000 cap.

So even in the nation's leading "judicial hellhole," courts throw out most baseless lawsuits early in the process, and the system usually does work.

Did you all get that? Only one verdict in Madison County, Illinois was over $250,000 over a seven year period. What litigation crisis?

The Administration is campaigning for tort limitations the same way it campaigned for the presidency: using fear, truth distortions, and out and out mistruths. As usual, it relies on the public not paying attention. Some of us do.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "Wrong medicine: caps:"

According to a 2004 study by the Congressional Budget Office, malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of total health care spending. The same study estimates that even a reduction of 25 percent to 30 percent in malpractice costs -- the president's plan certainly doesn't claim to save that much -- would lower health care costs by less than half of 1 percent.

The answers to lowering the fiscal effects of medical malpractice lie not with arbitrarily limiting compensation to injured patients but with bolstering identification and discipline of dangerous doctors and better regulation of the medical malpractice insurance industry.

So why, oh why, does our president want to limit people's access to the courts? Could there be another reason, such as giving yet another break to Big Insurance and Big Business? Nah.

Sidney Zion weighs in on the President's deplorable effort to limit access to the courts. Some great zingers:

"This war [on trial lawyers] is apparently Bush's top domestic priority. It's not the economy, stupid, it's the trial lawyers!"

****

"He [the president, while in Madison County, Illinois] paraded a few doctors who said they no longer could practice in Madison, as the verdicts had raised their malpractice insurance sky-high.

"Chances are these docs got the same vetting from the White House as Bernard Kerik, but so what? The cons and neocons of the American Tort Reform Association are the bunco artists of our time, and as such fly from facts as Dracula from the cross."

****

"Frivolous malpractice suits are rare. The reason? They cost too much to file. Trial lawyers finance these cases themselves, with contingent fees - which the tort reformers would abolish.

"The cap - and this is the real skinny - would leave young people and the elderly, those without economic damages because they have no incomes - without recourse to the courts. All they have is pain and suffering, and even without caps, it's difficult to get lawyers."

****

"Only 2% of patients injured by physician negligence sue. Which means these victimized doctors may be getting away with 98% of their malpractice."

I have been remiss in not blogging in opposition to the Administration's current tort limitation effort, as I had two years ago, when I first started this blog. I'll try to do a better job in the future.

More depressions like this? No thanks!

Another highly publicized campaign fallacy was that Americans are making less money today than before Bush was inaugurated. As illustrated by the chart below, when Bush took office, the average weekly pay for production or non-supervisory employees was $485. In December, it was $536 -- a 10.52% gain. This increase in wages -- also contrary to politically oriented assertions -- is greater than the 9.77% rise in inflation during this four-year period as measured by the Consumer Price Index (through November 2004). This means that when you combine lower tax-rates for all wage earners, the inflation-adjusted after-tax incomes of Americans have continued to rise during Bush's first term.

I don't know about the rest of you, but my salary hasn't gone up in the entire four years of the Bush presidency, as contrasted with the Clinton years. Another quote:

Certainly, another sign of depression would be declining consumer net worth -- the total of consumer assets minus liabilities -- which obviously plummeted during the 1930's. Strangely, during the Bush "depression," this statistic rose to a new all-time high of $45 trillion by the end of 2003 -- yes, even greater than at the stock bubble peak in March 2000. Without the final data for 2004, it is safe to assume that this net worth is significantly higher today given last year's 9% increase in stocks (S&P 500), and a likely similar gain in residential real estate values.

This guy may be an economist, but that doesn't comport with my personal and anecdotal experiences. Perhaps this is an example of misleading statistics, or the rich are getting richer, the poor getting poorer [not that I'm poor, but I worry...].

I just played a pretty cool AI game of 20 questions. Try it out; I'll bet you can't beat it!

How's this for subtle stifling of dissent? the Department of Education, through a PR firm cutout, paid a nationally syndicated television pundit almost a quarter of a million dollars to push the No Child Left Behind program:

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

Forget Tax cuts. Stop this crap and we'll save some real money. More odious, however, is the Administration's cavalier manipulation of public opinion by using a perceived independent commentator to shill for an Administration program. That he failed to disclose his bought-and-paid-for relationship to the Administration is damning fo both Armstrong Williams and to the Administration. It also begs the question of how many other "journalists" out there are pushing Administration positions while being paid sub rosa for their support?

By the way, he is keeping the $240,000.

UPDATE: Tribune Media Services, who syndicates Williams, has terminated its contract with Williams:

In a statement, TMS said: "[A]ccepting compensation in any form from an entity that serves as a subject of his weekly newspaper columns creates, at the very least, the appearance of a conflict of interest. Under these circumstances, readers may well ask themselves if the views expressed in his columns are his own, or whether they have been purchased by a third party."

That's about right.

ANOTHER UPDATE: According to friend Glenn, The government has done this before, for example, spending millions during the Clinton Administration to insert anti-drug messages into network television shows. I don't think much of that either, but I think one can distinguish between entertainment shows and what is passed off as "news" or "news commentary." It's easy to say "trust, but verify," but in practice, on-the-fly fact-checking news shows or determining the honesty/integrity of news commentators and pundits, is well-nigh impossible. In the spirit of good faith and fair play, potential conflicts in such shows must be disclosed.

In the "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" category, here's a story about a law professor [whoever said they were savvy], who got scammed by the same Nigerian get rich quick scheme we have all received in our email.

Note: I've got this great bridge in New York for sale....

I just scanned [quickly] Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds' long post on torture. What it boils down to for me is: what are we, as a nation and a people? One of his emailers asks, "If we have to do something that would heretofore have been considered barbaric in order to extract information that will save innocent lives, so be it." I disagree. Because our opponent tortures and horribly murders its captives, that in no way justifies us using torture tactics for those opponents in our custody.

This begs the question, of course, "what is torture?" We have operated for many years under the definitions set forth in the Geneva Convention, which definitions the Administration apparently seeks to change, via the policy memo written by AG nominee Gonzales. I still have not heard a convincing rationale to change that well-established definition. On the contrary, abusing our prisoners cheapens us internally and in the eyes of the world, and it places our people in greater danger; our abandonment of humane treatment standards will inevitably lead to other nations doing the same.

We are a nation of laws, committed to the rule of law in the way we live and conduct ourselves. When it is most difficult to remember that, such as now, is when it is most important to adhere to our basic values: good faith, fair play, and the law. If we slide down the slope to where the enemy wallows in the muck, we will soon have as much mud on our face as the enemy.

It's gut check time, and the United States is in danger of failing the test.

I'm playing around with a new browser, called Firefox, created by Mozilla. It's pretty cool, and apparently deals with a lot of the security holes present in MSIE. The best part so far is that you can open multiple browser tabs [different web sites] in one window. Apparently, lots of functionality, it seems significantly faster than MSIE in opening and drawing pages, and it's open source code, too, for those who don't think much of the Microsoft stranglehold on the cyber-world.

UPDATE: I learned of Firefox from this NPR Morning Edition Story.

For any fans of the rock group Chicago, here's a review I did on Amazon [with links inserted for this blog] for Robert Lamm's 2003 album, Subtlety and Passion:

Robert Lamm is one of the creative voices behind Chicago, the band that revolutionized pop/rock music in the 1970s. While Chicago has not released an album of original music since 1991 (the unreleased, yet still awfully good 1994 Stone of Sisyphus is widely available online as a bootleg), Lamm has become a de facto solo artist, releasing several albums in the past decade. None, however, had that stamp of Chicago, which endeared him to legions of fans. Although members of Chicago are quite close-mouthed about the rationale, it appears that there will be no new new album of Chicago originals for quite some time, if ever. Lamm makes up for it, however, with his 2003 collection, "Subtlety and Passion."

Featuring several members of Chicago, this album is, more or less, what a new Chicago release could have been. Opening with "I Could Tell You Secrets" Lamm sings that "All things are connected, much more than we suspected, nothing is by chance, how would you know." True words, here. Reading between the lines, and reviewing the online session notes, reveals that several of the S&P tunes were demoed for a Chicago release in 2001. Clearly, when the group failed to get its act together, Lamm went ahead and did his own thing.

Other highlights of this collection include "Somewhere Girl," which includes a nifty horn break with some some 6:8 measures thrown in for good measure, "Another Sunday," a wistful look at dreams once had and still hoped for, "Gimme Gimme," a biting and gutsy look at the plethora of awards shows and competitions, and "For You Kate," a sweet but not sappy love song to his daughter.

Lee Loughnane, Chicago's trumpet-meister, plays throughout the record, with appearances also by Walt Parazaider and James Pankow, Chicago's reed and trombone men. The horn arrangements, although often written by others, are pure Chicago in style, tone and composition. And, in a techno-achievement reminiscent of the Beatles recording new songs over old John Lennon demos, Lamm and producer-co-writer-co-performer Hank Linderman have taken a 1972 Chicago demo called "Intensity" with a Terry Kath guitar break, and constructed a contemporary song around that solo. Touches in this song remind the listener of Chicago in its best period, with horn riffs straight out of Chicago VI and VIII, and even an audio artifact at the beginning of the song that sounds just like the beginning of "What's This World Coming To," off VI. Definitely cool.

The best part of S&P, however, is that -- finally -- one of the sources of the Chicago sound has given us the next best thing to a Chicago-in-its-heyday album, full of hope, full of musicality, and full of promise of things to come. At this late date, and with the principals approaching and passing age 60 (scroll down), we may never see or hear the Chicago that got us excited years ago. Robert Lamm's "Subtlety and Passion" comes close, however.This is the best composition, performance and horn work on a Chicago (or proto-Chicago) record since Chicago XIV, released in 1980. Any fan of Chicago, or horn driven rock and roll, must have this album.

Others, i.e., Instapundit, have commented on the Administration proposals for lifetime imprisonment of suspected terrorists. Call me a raging radical if you will, but when I hear of things like lifetime -- or indefinite -- imprisonment, without due process, right to counsel, burden of proof, adnd the like, I think two things: (1) ridiculously unconstitutional; and (2) gulags/concentration camps.

What we've been hearing is that the idea has come about because these are terrorists; we just can't prove it. Not to be too skeptical, but shouldn't we have to prove it?

Fortunately, Senators from both sides of the aisle seem to agree.

Instapundit thinks it's an Administration trial balloon. OK, if it is, and the Administration pretty much knows it'll get shot down, then what is actually on thir collective minds? Even so, it sticks in my craw that the President of the United States is floating a trial balloon suggesting establishment of an American version of some of the worst that the Nazis or the Soviets ever perpetrated. That we can treat it so lightly is -- or should be -- of great concern to us as a society.

In the wake of the extraordinary disaster in Southeast Asia, help is coming from all quarters:

Four doctors from the Hadassah Medical Center at Ein Kerem left Israel for Colombo, Sri Lanka on Sunday to aid victims of an undersea earthquake that struck off the coast of Indonesia.

Prof. Avi Rivkind, Head of General Surgery and the Trauma Unit, Prof. Dan Engelhardt, the Head of Pediatrics, and anesthesiologists Prof. Yoel Donchin and Dr. Yuval Meroz were sent at the request of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and will use their vast experience and expertise to provide medical services to those suffering in the aftermath of the catastrophic tidal wave.

Israel and the Hadassah Medical Organization have a long history of sending rescue missions to parts of the world affected by natural disasters and war, most recently including the Turkish earthquake and the war in Kosovo, where Drs. Engelhardt and Donchin set up a Macedonian mobile medical unit to treat refugees from the war.

Every little bit counts.

A bad review for Amazon. I ordered a Spider-Man book for my seven year old, who loves the old original comics. I pleaced the order from Amazon about December 2. The confirmation said delivery would be made by December 9 or 10, that the book was in stock, and it would be shipped within 1 to 2 days. That would work, because I wanted to give it to Brian for Hanukah, which was for eight days, from December 7 through December 14.

On December 11, still having not received thebook, I checked the order at Amazon, and discovered that it had not even shipped yet. OK. I cancelled the Amazon order, and bought a copy of the same book through Ebay. I'll still miss Hanukah, but I wasn't going to do business with Amazon under those circumstances.

This episode is somewhat out of the ordinary, because my previous Amazon experiences have been pretty good. Xmas rush problems?

I love Nelson Demille's books. He tells a good story, and his prose is sometimes drop dead funny. Check out his new one, Night Fall. Here's a review. Set in the summer of 2001, FBI terrorism task force agent John Corey delves into the 1996 TWA 800 explosion and crash off Long Island. The official conclusion: mechanical problem in the center fuel tank. Corey's conclusion: read the book. Well written, and disturbing, too.

Well, I've entered the world of wireless networking, via the Netgear WGT624 router and WG511T PC card. I'm supposed to be able to get 108 mbps [or up to it, anyway], but it only wants to connect at a maximum of 54 mbps. At least it works. Sort of. The signal strength weakens badly at the outer edges of my office, so some sort of amplifier or booster will probably be necessary. Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds is picking me up for lunch in a few, so I'll be able to try it out in a wi-fi restaurant.