The current health reform bill does not address one of the major republican issues, tort reform. This is something that should be addressed, as the republican "solution" would be very damaging to victims of medical malpractice.
I suggest Obama & Congress consider the following: First, have the AMA produce a "best practices" manual that would guide a court (or commission) in determining whether a doctor followed a reasonable approach in treating a patient. Second, have malpractice cases come before a board of doctors instead of or prior to a court. It seems to me that doctors are better equipped to know if a medical procedure in a given case represents malpractice or not.
Finally, a medical mistake is not malpractice. Medical insurance should cover victims of mistakes and provide some level of financial support to compensate for lost income. Malpractice suits should only result from true malpractice, where the doctor did not follow accepted best practices.
My sister sent this e-mail today describing why she supports Obama and opposes McCain. I think it is thorough and succinct enough to share it with everyone.
In short, no, McCain is not Bush III. However, it seems Palin may be.
First, she seems to go to great lengths to seem like Bush. She wants to the be the person you want to have a beer with. She is a "regular" person.
John McCain has been relatively quiet on science, in spite of his belated answers to Science Debate 2008. Particularly worrisome is his apparent disconnect with the need to improve, nay overhaul (see the recent NAS publication "Rising Above the Gathering Storm"), K-12 science education. One of his few statements came in a primary debate on Univision, the major Spanish-language network:
Not that it means much, but I was very impressed by Obama's composure, security, and body language at yesterday's (9/24) press conference. Bravo!
That said, I just want to add that confidence is a very important psychology at times of crisis. I'm not talking about blind optimism, that is a very different thing. In 1980, Ronald Reagan gave people confidence that the recession would end and things would get better. It worked in the sense that the economy boomed. Of course, as I said then and reiterate now, it was at a big price. It took 25 years for the piper to come around and get paid, but that is what is happening today, in more ways than one. Deregulation that started under Reagan is responsible for much of the economic mess we are in. Add to that his discarding of an energy policy (that Carter had wisely undertaken) has forced us into two wars in Iraq and left us terribly vulnerable to the increasing instability of the fossil fuel-based economy. We have also been irresponsible on the issue of global climate change.
All of these things are very important to consider. On the one hand, we need to have confidence in our leaders and ourselves that we will overcome this economic crisis, and on the other our leaders must take wise policy decisions with the long view to not sacrifice our children's world for the sake of ours.
The GOP shot itself in the foot when it began its courting of the religious right. Never has it been more obvious than now. The so-called "conservative" party of the US has now inextricably aligned itself with a voting block that simply denies reality, and the Bush administration has openly admitted this. In particular (for me), they consistently deny established scientific reality, and this to the long- (and short-) term detriment of the country.
Denial of evolution science, global warming, and (in Gov. Palin's case) justifying predator culls simply fly in the face of established fact.
As a colleague of mine (non-US citizen) pointed out to me today, with the effective nationalization of the mortgage and insurance industries, the US has a greater part of its economy under federal control than any nation since ... the Soviet Union! This under W.
Much of this can be attributed to deregulation undertaken during the Reagan years. Their policies were best described as polishing an apple that was rotting from the inside. Thanks to the telecom boom (internet, computers, cell phones, etc.) of the 90s, the rot stayed in the core until true incompetence took over the White House. Now we are all left holding the bag.
I hope Obama and his economic advisors are looking at this carefully. McCain is clueless, but it'll take more than platitudes to fix this situation.
I heard a commentary on Monday's NPR program "Tell Me More", which I summarize to the best of my ability here.
One of the principal criticisms of Obama has been the accusation of elitism. This criticism did not begin with McCain, but it is now very much part of his campaign. This, of course, comes from Obama's Ivy League education and his rapid ascent through the political system, while walking with much of the intellectual elite (in the positive sense) of the country.
Of course, what the GOP doesn't want you to hear in this message is that Obama has succeeded in doing precisely what the GOP would have us all do. He took himself above the circumstances of his upbringing through aggressive achievement. He found the opportunities that were available and went after them. As a result, he attained a high level of education and has utilized that education in the private sector, public sector, and community activity, organizing and outreach. What better bootstraps story could you imagine???
We should want the Barack Obamas of our country leading us, not the George W Bushes, or, apparently, the John McCains.
