Gov. Rick Perry stated at the outset of his presidential campaign that he is running for president based on his principles and leadership accomplishments, not his oratorical skills. Media focus on his debate missteps deliberately ignores Perry’s record and charisma.

Six months ago discussing Perry’s possible candidacy, a top conservative leader privately said, “Rick is a great leader. But he’s not a greater debater. And he knows it. The question would be whether he overcomes it.”

Technology regularly creates new challenges for presidents. Debating skill was a non-issue for many consequential presidents, but some are trying to make it an automatic disqualifier for the Texas governor.

America’s third president—Thomas Jefferson—was a lousy public speaker. He was literally a genius, and his singular eloquence as a writer is seen in his prose in the Declaration of Independence and other writings.

But Jefferson was no speaker, so much so that he only gave a couple speeches in his entire two-term presidency. He was so bad that he fulfilled his constitutional requirement to give an annual State of the Union by sending a written document to Congress.

The media would pan Jefferson’s radio and television performance today. Does America regret electing such a lackluster orator?

(more…)

Regarding our country’s current fiscal issues, Republicans are right to draw a line in the sand. We have an obligation to say “no” to tax increases that do nothing to either stem or support the profligate, big-government spending favored by the Democrats. Unchecked government spending is a road that, if traveled, will further plunge our nation into economic anemia due to massive debt and uncontrollable entitlements. This malaise, Democrats will argue, may only be solved by “redistributing wealth” through back-breaking tax increases that will erode the spirit and principles that distinguish our country, leaving only a shadow of its past greatness. That is what is at stake; the stakes have never been higher.

Conservatives cannot allow Republican lawmakers to soften or defect on the party’s fundamental principles, or worse, align with those who are diametrically opposed to everything the GOP stands for:  free enterprise, reasonable taxes, limited government and tort reform. Yes, tort reform — and here’s why.

Ignoring tort reform has been devastating to taxpayers, the economy and American business. The U.S. is the most litigious nation in the world; it weakens us competitively and lessens respect for America’s legal system in the eyes of the world. The question isn’t how this critical issue fell from our sightlines to the sidelines. The question is: Why have we permitted trial lawyers to worm their way into our ranks to undermine GOP priorities and the party itself?

In state capitols across the country, there are legislators who proclaim to be conservatives yet block lawsuit reform. A look at just a few states quickly reveals several examples of Republicans who align with personal injury lawyers. (more…)

From Politico:

America’s trial lawyers are getting ready to make the case against one of their biggest targets in years: Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Among litigators, there is no presidential candidate who inspires the same level of hatred – and fear – as Perry, an avowed opponent of the plaintiffs’ bar who has presided over several rounds of tort reform as governor.

And if Perry ends up as the Republican nominee for president, deep-pocketed trial lawyers intend to play a central role in the campaign to defeat him.

(more…)

Texas took yet another step this week that is certain to tighten its grip on the designation as the nation’s leading state for business. Governors in other states looking to improve their jobs situation should give serious consideration to mirroring the Lone Star State’s aggressive pro-jobs, pro-growth agenda.

On Tuesday the Texas Senate, under the leadership of Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and despite an aggressive lobbying effort by the Trial Lobby, voted unanimously in favor of “loser pays” tort reform legislation. On Wednesday, the House, which had passed a similar bill and was awaiting the Senate’s version, concurred with the Senate bill and passed it through. Gov. Rick Perry has said he will enthusiastically sign the bill into law.

‘Loser pays’ will require plaintiff’s to foot the bill of the winning party’s legal costs if a judge finds the case to be groundless. According to the Wall Street Journal, “This Texas upgrade would build on reforms in 2003 and 2005 that have vastly improved the legal climate in what has not coincidentally become the country’s best state for job creation.”

Negotiations on the bill were highly contentious in recent weeks, mostly due to a well-funded lobbying campaign by the Trial Lobby, which, in Texas, is virtually synonymous with the Democratic Party. Nevertheless, there was a breakthrough over the weekend.

From the Austin Statesman:

By a unanimous vote, the Texas Senate has just given final approval to a once-controversial “loser pays” bill designed to make it easier to get meritless lawsuits tossed out of court.

(more…)

The expression ‘Everything is Bigger in Texas’ used to apply to ambulance chasing attorneys, frivolous litigation, and mega-payouts to plaintiffs.  The Lone Star state was known for attracting a robust tort bar and a less-than-thriving medical community, as physicians gave the state a wide berth to avoid sky-high malpractice insurance rates and the constant risk of getting hit with junk lawsuits where even the winner loses via punishing legal fees.

That all changed when the state enacted pioneering tort reform laws in 2003 and 2005 that overhauled much of the state’s legal system, with a focus on areas that act as magnets for low-merit litigation, such as class-action certification, product liability, and medical malpractice.  The new law also put a cap of $250,000 on non-economic damages, vastly reducing the average size of lawsuits.  The result?  In just a few years, Texas has become first in the nation in job creation, and seen the number of doctors applying for license to practice rise by 60 percent.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is not content to stop there; the popular Republican and current RGA Chairman devoted a portion of his most recent State of the State address to promoting adoption of a ‘loser pays’ rule, which requires plaintiffs to pick up the tab for defendants’ legal fees if their suits are judged to be groundless.   Sometimes called the ‘English Law’ due to its origin in England, loser pays laws are in place in the legal systems of nearly every developed nation besides the U.S.  Incidentally, the U.S. is home to the world’s most complicated and costly legal system by far.  The Wall Street Journal reports that Americans now spend more per year on tort litigation than on new cars, with the total tort tab reaching $247 billion in 2006.  Coincidence?  Probably not – loser pays measures are known to clear the legal system of nuisance litigation, act as a deterrent against low-merit class action suits, lower overall litigation costs, and create a more expedient path to justice for meritorious claims.

The Texas House handed Perry a victory this month, handily passing their version of the loser-pays legislation.  Now, the tort reform battle looms in the State Senate, where their version of the loser-pays bill is in committee.  Lt. Gov. – and likely U.S. Senate candidate – David Dewhurst will be pitted against Texas Trial Lawyer honcho President Steve Mostyn, a sort of King of the Ambulance Chasers.  Mostyn has amassed a large personal fortune by obtaining jackpot settlements from the state in hurricane-related lawsuits, and coughed up almost $6 million (nearly half of what the trial lawyers spent in total) to defeat Perry and other pro-tort reformRepublicans in 2010.  Perry has made it clear he will sign any loser pays bill that crosses his desk, so the spotlight is on Dewhurst to play the rainmaker.

(more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the Black Friday sales figures, the policy wishes of America’s CEOs and Brazil’s booming inflation.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Black Friday Starts to Brighten
The CEOs’ Top Priorities
TNL: Brazil Gets Ireland’s Disease

(more…)

It’s Halloween, and in the Land of (Honest Abe) Lincoln a liberal judge is wearing a Republican mask and lying to voters.

Staring disaster in the face on Tuesday, Democrats are running scared. And some are even running as Republicans.

Thomas Kilbride is running to be “retained” as a State Supreme Court Justice in Illinois. He needs 60% of voters in the 3rd District, which comprises a band across the middle of Illinois from the Mississippi River to Indiana, to re-elect him.

Kilbride is a Democrat, according to Wikipedia’s State Supreme Court page for Illinois, and received $600,000 from the Democratic party in 2000 when he first ran. But Republicans and conservatives in his District will be forgiven for being confused about that, because they’ve recently been bombarded with campaign flyers indicating Kilbride is a Republican.

(more…)

When companies are found to have violated regulations that govern their industry, is it right that a jury of non-experts can award damages the amount of which will wipe the company off the face of the earth? That is a question that has been raised in a case recently decided against Skilled Healthcare LLC of California.

A class action lawsuit (lawsuit info here) brought by trial lawyers was filed late last year against Skilled Healthcare of California claiming that the company had violated state regulations that stipulates that nursing homes must maintain 3.2 nursing hours per patient, per day (ppd). The lawsuit claimed that the nursing homes operated by Skilled Healthcare often did not meet the requirement.

Interestingly, there was never any claim from any patient that they’d been harmed or put in danger. Not a single patient claimed personal injury before these lawyers began to file their class action lawsuit.

After a six-month trial the jury decided that the company did violate the rules and awarded the plaintiffs $613 million in statutory damages and $58 million in restitutionary damages.

There is a problem with this award, however. The company only has borrowing credit of $94 million. If the company were to be held to this outrageously high award it would go bankrupt and would be forced to close its doors.

Not only that but some 32,000 people — patients/residents and healthcare workers alike — would lose their heatlhcare facilities and jobs if this award were enforced.

Does this make sense?

(more…)

I have been reading various articles and listening to pundits for months talk about healthcare reform. They have discussed ad nauseam everything from complete government takeover with single payer on one hand to free markets on the other.

Next week, we will be witness to the President’s healthcare forum. This is what we know so far:

• Tort reform is pretty much off the table.

The trial lawyers lobby has seen to that.

• There seems to be no political will to apply anti-trust regulations

This will continue to benefit the health insurance industry since they will be able to continue to run fiefdoms in various markets guaranteeing their market share and profits.

• The public option is really NOT an option.

If it does get implemented it will be a glorified version of Medicare Advantage where the program is administered by the insurance companies. A particularly sweet win-win situation for them since it means we will have to pay them whether we want private insurance or not.

• More taxes

We will be paying money into a governmental black hole for the next 4 years in the hopes that we will get inexpensive, comprehensive health coverage in the end. I have just two words about that – Medicare and Social Security (enough said).

• If you don’t like your insurance too bad

People who don’t like their private insurance plan will not be able to access the exchange system.

We are at a crossroads.

(more…)

Healthcare reform will once again be coming to the forefront on February 25 when the President calls leaders from both parties for a healthcare summit.  The summit is a half-day meeting to solve the problems in healthcare that have persisted for decades.  The President will once again explain his plans for healthcare reform, after having apologized and accepted responsibility for not “explaining it more clearly to the American people.”

The President has already given 29 speeches explaining his party’s plans for healthcare reform.  The problem is not that the public does not understand the Senate or House proposals.  The public understands the proposals all too well:  a government takeover of healthcare with a price tag of $2.5 trillion over 10 years, giant slashes to the already under-funded Medicare, expansion of Medicaid, huge tax increases that would cost an estimated five million American jobs and stifle medical innovation, and individual mandates to purchase government-approved insurance plans just to name a few.  The American people understand these proposals and have soundly rejected them, as evidenced by the recent election in Massachusetts.

America is desperately in need of healthcare reform.  I have yet to meet a person who opposes the idea of healthcare reform.  The status quo is not a sustainable path.  But the reform we enact must be responsible and must maintain the quality and availability of care and the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship.  Such responsible reform would include the following:

(more…)

Rationing Medicare will not require clandestine meetings in smoke filled rooms. Simply reduce physician reimbursement to below the cost of delivering quality care, and free market forces will take care of the rest.

Medicare has already begun the process of backdoor rationing. Facing overwhelming budget shortfalls, Medicare needs to trim its books. Washington found a clever solution: eliminate the billing code for “physician consults.”

As a hospital physician, I often admit Medicare patients with chest pain or shortness of breath. If my patient needs urgent help from a cardiologist, I call a colleague for assistance.

Until December 31, 2009 the cardiologist could charge a “physician consult” fee for getting out of bed, coming to the hospital, and evaluating a patient with a potentially life threatening problem. Medicare paid $195.76 for this middle-of-the-night work (the same rate as when done during the day).

By eliminating the “physician consult” billing code, Medicare now advises the specialist to charge for a “hospital admission.” For two more months, Medicare will pay $175.67 for this service. However, without a change in current law, the physician’s reimbursement for a “hospital admission” will drop to $141.63 on March 1. This is why the “Doc Fix” is so important for working physicians and their Medicare patients.

(more…)

As the Senate Finance Committee completed its work on a bill that would greatly expand the government’s role in health care – requiring nearly everyone to buy insurance, and designing that insurance through subsidies and mandates – President Obama is trying to rally doctors to his side. At an event last week at the Rose Garden, phalanxed by doctors wearing their white coats (as well as some that White House staffers had handed out), Obama declared, “nobody has more credibility with the American people on this issue than you do.”

Dr. Benjamin Carson receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Yet one of the nation’s top surgeons, with credibility and acclaim the world over for the pioneering surgeries he has and his personal story of overcoming hardship, recently ripped the dominant health care legislation before Congress in a critique similar to that of conservatives and libertarians. Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md., and recipient of numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, criticized in a recent interview the approach of the current bills for their mandate, creation of a “public option,” and lack of malpractice liability reform. 

“My biggest problem is I feel it’s going in the wrong direction,” Carson told reporters at TV station WLOS in Asheville, N.C. (Video here.)“It’s giving us more government and less autonomy. And I think we should be going in exactly the opposite direction. We should be having more autonomy and less government. And that is the kind of thing that brings the prices down.”  (more…)

Earlier today Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty explained to BigGovernment.com readers how the Baucus health care plan is a prescription for higher taxes and higher premiums.

In keeping with the theme that good perspectives and ideas often come from the states, 33 state-based think tanks came together this morning to announce a health care reform alternative to ObamaCare.

“President Obama and other supporters of government-run health care like to proclaim that there’s no alternative to their plans,” said John Tillman, CEO of the Illinois Policy Institute. “Our patient-centered reform package offers a clear alternative that puts patients, not bureaucrats, first.  It protects the doctor-patient relationship, offers viable solutions for the uninsured, and keeps medical care affordable for all Americans.”

Patient-centered health care reform:

(more…)

Say what you will about the health reform bill introduced by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), and the Left is having a field day attacking it, but at least it is a plan. President Obama has spent months talking about what he wants out of a bill, but when the chips are down and the polls are crashing, all we get from him is a two and half page outline.  Why would he offer such weak leadership?

One possible answer, for you cynics out there (and I may be one), is that he has zero leadership experience and this is simply his way of voting “present” one more time. But that’s too easy and too amateurish for someone so politically savvy.

The only logical answer is he doesn’t want to be pinned down on any specifics.  Sure, he’s talked about what he’d like in a bill, but he’s pretty much disavowed everything he’s said he supports too. He wants a public option one day, but doesn’t need one the next, then explains how it is vital to “real reform.” It literally can’t be both but that hasn’t stopped him from having it both ways.

So at this point, whenever anyone criticizes Obamacare the White House has the perfect defense, “There is no bill.” You can’t win a shadow boxing match, you can’t pick a lock with mashed potatoes, and you can’t pin any unpopular proposals on the President.

(more…)