You have proven your ignorance or your lack of credibility yet again. The 2 trillion he’s citing isn’t the healthcare reform package, but rather it’s the amount of money that Americans spend yearly on healthcare with the current system. The spin you push is unbelievable. Whatever happened to “Thou shalt not bear false witness”?

Actually, Michelle, this Texan can tell you that the number of doctors in Texas has fallen since tort reform here. But it did prevent a woman whose surgeon carved his initials in her stomach during surgery from suing for damages, so maybe your Satanist supporters like Karen what’s-her-name would be in favor of it.

Robert R., better check your facts. According to The Perryman Report:
1. In August 2004, the Texas Hospital Association reported a 70% reduction in the number of lawsuits filed against the state’s hospitals.
2. Medical liability insurance rates declined. Many doctors saw average rate reductions of over 21%, with some doctors seeing almost 50% decreases. (Recent information provided to The Perryman Group during the course of this study suggests that premiums are declining even further in 2008.)
3. Beginning in 2003, physicians started returning to Texas. The Texas Medical Board reports licensing 10,878 new physicians since 2003, up from 8,391 in the prior four years. Perryman has determined that at least 1,887 of those physicians are specifically the result of lawsuit reform.
http://tlrfoundation.com/beta/files/Texas_Tort_Reform_Report_2008.pdf
There is much more there, including the positive economic impact.
I don’t know about the alleged initials thing. Can you provide documentation for that exceptional instance?.,

Maybe someone else knows about the Texas case where a doc carved initials on a woman’s stomach and she was prevented from suing due to tort reform in Texas. I’m really curious now that Robert R. brought it up.

Doc carved initials.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/12/nyregion/patient-settles-case-of-initials-cut-in-skin.html
“A woman whose doctor carved his initials into her skin after he delivered her baby by Caesarean section has settled a lawsuit against the doctor and dropped her claim against Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, the hospital said yesterday.”
That’s Manhattan, New York, btw. No such case in Texas.
Thanks for the Reid video. He’s a clever one, alright.

Thanks for the link.
Under the terms of the settlement, the patient, Dr. Liana Gedz, a dentist, will receive $1.75 million, according to people who were involved in the settlement talks.
Well that hardly turned out bad for the victim.
I’m still interested in the Texas case where tort reform prevented the victim from suing if anyone knows of it.

Since it has been a couple of days and no one has brought forth the story of “the Texas case (initials carved on a woman’s stomach) where tort reform prevented the victim from suing,” I gues it’s safe to assume that no such case exists.
So to summarize, tort reform in Texas actually led to an increase in doctors in Texas as Michele said and the alleged case cited above is apparently not true. By the way, tort reform has led to increases in doctors in other states as well.
To be clear, when some is harmed by a doctor due to negligence, error or intentional harm the victim of such should be able to seek damages, including non-economic damages. But there should be limits to that non-economic damage. That would go a long way in saving money in malpractice insurance which in turns save money in healthcare.

yeah, i’m sure that the “texans for lawsuit reform” (tlr foundation) is a credible source of tort reform information… their agenda is pretty clear, i think.
“tort reform in Texas actually led to an increase in doctors in Texas”
probably true to some extent. however, there was a general increase of doctors in texas anyway, and i would assume the same is true for other states as the need for doctors has grown with the ageing boomers. i’m interested in knowing how they tagged 1887 “new” doctors to tort reform.
also, texas is the best example of how tort reform would be a benefit. by that, i mean that texas was one of the worst states when it came to out-of-control frivolous lawsuits and rewards that were out of sync with other states’. to expect the same results throughout the country would be unrealistic.
for example, according to the same report,

Through the 1990s, a wrongful death in Texas could be valued at $8
million compared to $1 million in other states. Many doctors stopped
practicing medicine and performing higher-risk (though potentially
lifesaving) procedures because of the fear of malpractice lawsuits that
could potentially ruin their careers.

also, the report does a little cherry picking of the data.

In August 2004, the Texas Hospital Association reported a 70% reduction in the number of lawsuits filed against the state’s hospitals.

but on the same page of the report, the data shows that tort cases were on a steady decline from 1995 to 2001 (attributed in the report to tort reform in 1995). but despite the 1995 reforms, tort cases increased dramatically for 2 consecutive years, to almost the same level in 2003 as it was in 1995! common sense tells us that as population increases, the number of malpractice cases will increase (unless these lawsuits are choked off completely to where there is no justice for victims). a more realistic and less biased view would consider the number of cases per capita per year. litigation is not as big of a problem as some groups would make it out to be.
tort reform should be realistically addressed and pursued. just don’t expect it to be a silver bullet. $54 billion a year is chump change compared to other other areas of waste, but still worth saving. there is likely 10x more waste in the military budget that righties wouldn’t want to discuss.