Comments on: John Edwards on Drugs

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:51:25 +0000

With regard to Edwards’ plan? I think it, and all others similar, are all just campaign rhetoric so they can say “I’ve got a healthcare plan.”

Which is one of the reasons I’m most frustrated with physicians - because instead of spending all their time on helping their liability carriers make money, they ought to be worried about a comprehensive change to their whole way of life in terms of socialized medicine/single payer/whatever term you want to use. They ought to be leading the charge for a new proposal for free market reforms that benefit all. But best I can tell, without the insurers organizing them, they’re content to sit back and bitch.

By: Catron

Catron — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:12:20 +0000

You still haven’t addressed my main point.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:08:39 +0000

Tort “reform” in most of its current guises, is nothing more than damage caps, which regulates lawsuits regardless of their merit. As for “frivolous” ones, there are actually quite a few regulations for those, although truly frivolous cases are most often filed pro se in small claims court.

Perhaps you should educate yourself on what the proposals you’re backing really say.

By: Catron

Catron — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 21:04:10 +0000

To say that government has no right to regulate frivolous lawsuits is like saying it has no right to protect its citizens against muggers and grifters. The key word is “legitimate.” The lawsuits regulated by tort reform are not “legitimate” by any rational standard.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:50:23 +0000

Actually, it’s the very antithesis of libertarianism. How arbitrarily capping the damages of people with legitimate claims based on numbers chosen by lobbyists constitutes libertarianism is beyond me. Particularly when you choose the decisions of those same lobbyists over the decisions of the individual jurors who *gasp* actually heard the evidence.

Unless you’ve completely redefined the term to suit your personal purposes. Or protection of insurer profits became part of the libertarian mantra and I missed it.

By: Catron

Catron — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:32:50 +0000

Tort reform, despite the misconceptions of many, is not inconsistent with libertarianism. Libertarian principles do not preclude the state from protecting its citizens from predators, even those who use the law to faciltate their predatory behavior.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:18:50 +0000

I’m not suggesting that it does. I’m just chuckling at a tort “reformers” claims to be a libertarian.

By: Catron

Catron — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 15:13:43 +0000

Perhaps you’d like to tell me, in your own words, how giving taxpayer (prize) money to “Big Pharma” conforms with libertarian principles.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:03:25 +0000

I think you need to spend some time here so you’ll know what you’re talking about: http://www.lp.org.

By: Catron

Catron — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 20:55:08 +0000

Libertarianism doesn’t require that we impale ourselves on a policy that would do more harm than good. Besides, having the government provide artificial inducements is hardly a libertarian policy.