With Arkansas Swing, Bush Targets Democratic Rivals (Edwards dump)

[papau]

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-campaign-bush.html

With Arkansas Swing, Bush Targets Democratic Rivals
By REUTERS Filed at 1:58 p.m. ET

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - President Bush took aim at two of his Democratic challengers on Monday on a campaign-style swing through the home state of Wesley Clark, where he decried the flood of lawsuits by trial lawyers like John Edwards.

With voters increasingly focused on rising health care costs and the plight of the nation's 43 million uninsured, Bush used a day-trip to a Little Rock medical center to press Congress to revive his plan to cap medical malpractice damage awards.

He cast his proposal to impose a $250,000 cap on many awards as part of a Republican drive to make health insurance more affordable.

"Frivolous and junk lawsuits are threatening medicine across the country," Bush said. "People (are) just filing these lawsuits right and left and it's running up the costs."
<snip>

Scuttled last year by Democrats, Bush's proposal would set a limit of $250,000 in noneconomic damage awards -- most for "pain and suffering" -- and reserve punitive damages for cases where they were justified and limit them to "reasonable amounts." Punitive damages are awarded in excess of actual damages and usually only in cases of extreme misconduct.<snip>

[LiviaOlivia]

1. Bush is a Tort Reform hypocrite

link:

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/4286

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Arkansans I know

don't plan to vote for the Shrub. He's hurt them, and hurt them bad, in his prescription drug "benefit", he's kept their Guardsmen kids in harm's way without proper equipment, and not done a thing to help the economy around here. They are mad-and I'm finding more and more of them every day.

[leyton]

3. There's nothing wrong with tort reform.

When Joe is criminally negligent and Bob is crippled for life in the process, Joe can get a hefty sentence. He can lose lots of money, and can be thrown in jail. Ten years for the average twenty-year-old is a fifth of his remaining lifespan.

When Joe, Inc. is criminally negligent and Bob is crippled for life in the process, Joe, Inc., can get a hefty sentence - but only a financial one. And it's rarely a fifth of Joe, Inc.'s corporate assets. Bush would prefer that Joe, Inc. get a slap on the wrist, 'cuz hey, let's not punish businesses!

Hence the reason tort reform is stupid.