After her victory over that ‘death panel’ language, Sarah Palin now wants something in Obamacare that Barack Obama won’t talk about - malpractice law reform or ‘tort reform’. Read more below, see photos, and watch a video.
Sarah Palin: Tort Reform in Obamacare
Once again from Facebook, Sarah Palin is speaking out against Obamacare. This time she is asking Barack Obama and Congress to fix what’s specifically wrong with our healthcare system instead of eliminating everything that’s right. Using her own personal experience as a Governor bombarded with nothing but one frivilous ethics complaint after another, she blasts Barack Obama’s and Congress’s unwillingness to address tort reform as a major burden on our economy and the health care industry specifically. One thing is certain, the debate of Sarah Palin’s tort reform position in Obamacare will prove to be an interesting, if not bloody battle.
If we, as a country, are really serious about reforming healthcare, then there must be a serious discussion about tort reform. The costs of “defensive medicine” is driving the high costs of healthcare, and yet tort reform is absent in Obamacare. Why is that? Well, one reason is the special interests of trial lawyers like, say, John Edwards. They make lots and lots of money and are, as a block, huge contributors to the DNC. Another possible reason is that many members of congress and Barack Obama himself are attorneys and possibly less receptive to tort reform.
Sarah Palin’s tort reform position is one that makes sense. Here’s an excerpt:
“President Obama’s health care “reform” plan has met with significant criticism across the country. Many Americans want change and reform in our current health care system. We recognize that while we have the greatest medical care in the world, there are major problems that we must face, especially in terms of reining in costs and allowing care to be affordable for all. However, as we have seen, current plans being pushed by the Democratic leadership represent change that may not be what we had in mind — change which poses serious ethical concerns over the government having control over our families’ health care decisions. In addition, the current plans greatly increase costs of health care, while doing lip service toward controlling costs.
We need to address a REAL bipartisan reform proposition that will have REAL impacts on costs and quality of patient care.
As Governor of Alaska, I learned a little bit about being a target for frivolous suits and complaints (Please, do I really need to footnote that?). I went my whole life without needing a lawyer on speed-dial, but all that changes when you become a target for opportunists and people with no scruples. Our nation’s health care providers have been the targets of similar opportunists for years, and they too have found themselves subjected to false, frivolous, and baseless claims. To quote a former president, “I feel your pain.”
So what can we do? First, we cannot have health care reform without tort reform. The two are intertwined…”
Indeed they are intertwined. Palin, not Barack Obama, is once again driving the healthcare debate from somewhere in Alaska using new media to export her message. And just like in the case of ‘death panels’ in Obamacare, I suspect Sarah Palin’s tort reform position will also become part of the national debate on healthcare reform.
Sarah Palin Photos
Sarah Palin Video
August 21st, 2009 at 3:08 pm
I said that the left would eventually regret harassing this woman and her family. This is why she stepped down as governor. No more frivolous lawsuits and freedom to control the dialogue on her terms.
Get ‘em Sarah!
August 21st, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Palin 2012
August 21st, 2009 at 3:22 pm
OK now I have no clue what she’s doing, because she resigns and than she stays politically active. Yet I still think she just wants to cash in on this.
August 21st, 2009 at 3:26 pm
She makes great points. The current Obamacare proposal is the classic throw out the baby with the bathwater approach.
August 21st, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Obama is a lawyer surrounded by lawyers. That’s why there’s no tort reform. Only lawyers gain from the current medical malpractice laws.
August 21st, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Americans who actually pay taxes,( or have paid taxes throughout their lives), of all political parties, are finally waking up to the assault on their freedoms, their wealth accumulation potential, their right to choose health insurance and care providers, etc. We far outnumber all of the lawyers, all of the legislators, and all of the shocking number of radical ” changers” in this administration ( including the weird collection of very powerful “Czars” working under the radar ). We are watching, this August, the power of everyday people, who have had enough, and are raising a loud cry for Washington to hear. If we multiply this by ten or one hundred times from now on, scared legislators will listen or be voted out of office. We outnumber them!
August 21st, 2009 at 6:42 pm
I’ll support the candidate who supports either a Fair Tax or a 30% tariff on all nations. Now I feel we should a have state tariff about 10% and a 30% tariff on other countries trade, because we should work to help businesses hear and that comes from getting rid of the income tax.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Is that tort reform, or tart reform?
John Edwards. So, when a pool that’s not screened right sucks the guts out of a little girl, we should let ‘em slide. OK.
Yeah, tort reform is really go to fix our health care system. That’s really going to do a lot. Make the insurance companies even richer than they are now.
We see whose side Sarah Palin is on, and it is not the side of the American people.
August 21st, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Krazy Kat - do you even understand tort reform?
August 21st, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I think it’s very telling just how much Obama and the libs worry about what Sarah Palin is saying and doing.
If she’s as stupid as the libs say she is why do they continue to care so much what she says?
You don’t see us ringing our hands over Dennis the Menace’s every word.
She put Barry on defense with her “death panel” comments and he hasn’t recovered.
August 21st, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Not to sound ignorant Shannon, but who is Dennis the Menace?
August 22nd, 2009 at 1:07 am
Fellow Americans, here we sit, Conservative, Liberal, Independent and Other, with a self proclaimed socialist president that dictates to all of us what is right and wrong, appropriate and unappropriate, just and unjust, by his own vertue. A tyrant that tells you what you will and will not be allowed to do via the power of the government, deciding which elders will live and die, which Americans will be allowed to occupy certain jobs, and the Freedoms that we hold dear put in jeopardy by the same. Only eight months past, unemployment at a micalulated high, government progams bankrupt or shortly thereafter will be, a premature pullout of war conceded as a loss, and a democrat cut in national defense, amongst many many other downfalls.
Has our country decined in values across the board? Was 1985 or 1986 better than 1995 or 1996? Was 1995 or 1996 better than 2005 or 2006? Was our country stronger in the 1980’s versus the 1990’s? A 1 million man Army versus a 500,000 man Army. Cuts? Budgets? Not applicable, as you can see, our country will always call for a strong national defense.
Freedom is what we are born into. Limited government a gesture by our Founding Fathers. No progressivism which now seems to threaten our well being more than cancer, which our own government does not acknowledge, amongst all the other social cancers we endure like illegal immigration. Has our government failed us?
Why have I chosen to write off topic under the beautiful woman above? Self explanatory, she sees this clearer than most. She is ridiculed but nevertheless keeps faith in our country and continues to fight for all Americans. She is a patriot! She understands what most do not. This is the banner under which our Nationalism must fly, a strong inner being with core principles and a beautiful face, deserving of a place in history. God bless her, and may we see her shaped as a Statue in the Harbor one day in the future of American history!
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:34 am
flying monkey, that would be mr kucinich. The left has tried to portray Palin as weird and stupid as dennis the menace kucinich.
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:35 am
Ditto Ron
August 22nd, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I will never understand why the republicans didn’t challenge obama on his no tort reform policy and insist it be part of the reform package. any attempt at serious reform would include this. but they didn’t even try. so that tells me the republicans have no interest in real health care reform or even deem it worth their effort. To let the debate focus soley on private health insurers profit line is a big mistake. There are other issues.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Nope Brian, when questioned about tort reform democrats skate around a yes or no answer because they receive millions of dollars in campaign contributions every election year from trial lawyers.
Republicans want to drive down the cost by allowing Americans to buy policies over state lines, have tort reform, and have a plan to cover those AMERICANS that are currently without insurance. What they do not want is to take over an entire system for 10-15 million people. That’s like knocking down the house to remodel the kitchen, makes no sense…
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:15 pm
To address tort reform Brian, would be a signal that they were buying in to government health care. They’re not!!
The Republicans should just step back, as they are doing, and let the Democrats hang themselves.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Why is everyone making this so difficult? We need reform, not a k street run national health plan.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Tell the Obidiot that!
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:32 pm
mr. monkey its not all obama’s fault. he just didn’t think it thru and design a good plan to sell it and communicate it. And the republicans blind sided him with the august vacation delay tirckery and smear campaign.(or should we say the insurance company lobby run and funded attack using the republicans a shills) Daschle would have had a key role and he can speak better than Seby on it.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:48 pm
So what you’re doing Brian is buying into the Democratic hoo-ha that all the people that showed up at the town halls were plants. Again, nice try. Had there been any truth to that at all the Democrats and their Affirmative Action Hero wouldn’t be on the ropes right now.
The only people showing up at the town halls with color coordinated T-shirts and pre-printed signs were the SEIU and Acorn. The real, spontaneous attendees were not solicited on Craigs List.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:54 pm
rachel maddow did several pieces on the “plants” and their funders and organizers and associated pac’s that have born out under intense scrutiny. She even had a face off with Dick Army over it on sunday news.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:59 pm
But did she acknowledge that the Democrats and Obama were doing the same thing? The only fixed town halls were the ones where union members and ACORN were allowed in early and, of course, the cherry picked attendees of Obama’s town halls.
The earliest town halls consisted of average citizens and the polls bear that out.
August 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
You know what bothers me the most. When obama was talking to religious leaders saying this is a moral obligation for us to do. The only people your obligated to help is yourself and your family, because I didn’t work my ass of in high school for nothing. I worked hard so I can go to a good college like NYU and be successful. I saw people who they spent all of high school being lazy and smoking weed throughout high school. And now all they do is live in the sticks, they have crapy jobs, and they smoke crap all day. When you work hard you should keep all your money and spend it on what you want. There should be no income tax penalizing you for working hard. As a country we should only be obligated to take care of our soldiers. It’s the citizens responsibility to make sure they have food and healthcare. We need to get rid of the income tax and replace it with a tariff as quickly as possible.