Though the House of Representatives have passed this bill, I do implore you all to really consider if you should encourage your representatives in the Senate to put support behind this legislation. I don’t think I need remind you that our economy is suffering the largest crisis it has faced in a very long time. With economic suffering, it is not wise in the least bit to spend more when there are debts to be paid.

If spending unnecessarily is not motivation enough, think about the repercussions this will have on your insurance plans. Do you think that our private insurances will still cover us if we have a national health plan? Most of these insurances come through the jobs and careers that we have and will have. Therefore, what company or institution will continue to provide healthcare to their employees when there is a healthcare plan that is free and available to the public? No employer in their right mind would pay for insurances for their employees in that case. This is one more way for our government to empower themselves while taking power away from us.

Let’s not give up our right to choose the healthcare we want. This is our lives and our health we are talking about. Take power back into your lives and away from the already very powerful government. We have rights and we will not be ignored!

The business of same-sex marriage is once again being addressed as the elections have just passed and new bills are being presented. Same-sex marriage is an issue that is constantly being debated and discussed as our society is changing. Homosexuality is not as closeted now and so, gay rights have become a bigger issue now. So, the big question: should we legalize gay-marriage? The answer is a lot more complicated so a yes or no cannot suffice.

The answer that I think best fits is civil union. Why can’t we legalize civil unions and grant homosexuals the same rights without calling it a marriage? Marriage is clearly defined as a union between a man and woman. Marriage is strictly heterosexual because marriage is an institution defined by religion, not by our government. Our state governments and federal government have been trying to decide the gay-marriage issue for a while when they should have even have a hand in it. Gay-marriage should not be the issue. Granting civil unions more rights, instead, should be the issue. Religion alone governs the concept of marriage and how that is defined. The local, state, and federal governments should determine and grant rights and certain legalities such as the right to have a say in medical treatment of a loved one. Marriage should not be the end-all resolve decided by the government. Our founding fathers created provisions that religion and state should not mix and here we are, allowing marriage to be decided by state governments such as Maine. Granted, Maine was not wrong to reject the bill but Maine should not have had the ability to accept it either.

I’m not saying that homosexuals shouldn’t have a commitment that binds them but they do not have to necessarily call it a marriage. A civil union is just as good as so long that other rights are granted as well. Once again, the issue is rights, not marriage. Marriage is a traditional system created by religious institutions, not by the government and that’s where marriage should stay. It should stay a religious institution while the government votes on the rights to be granted to civil unions!

It would be a crime to go against our Second Amendment Rights and actually try to limit our freedom and right to bear arms. We were given that freedom by our founding fathers to protect ourselves from those who wish us harm. As colonists, the British colonial government bullied us and they used their weapons against us and we had no rights to fight back but we did fight back. We fought back so that we could carry our own arms in order to better defend our newly formed nation and ourselves.

Today, there is still no exception. We still possess that freedom and right to bear arms so that we may protect our individual selves, our families, and our nations. Would you make it harder and deny our soldiers their rights to protect themselves? I don’t think so. They are fighting with their lives in the balance just to protect our nation and our security so that we may continue to preserve our lifestyles and our freedoms. There’s no greater honor than that.

Also, if you’re a family man or a family woman and someone breaks into your home with a gun, wouldn’t you want to be equipped with one too in order to save your life and the life of your family members? Wouldn’t you want to be prepared to defend yourselves? I would think that with the growing rate of crime that more people would be to be prepared. Also, stronger gun control laws do not keep criminals from gaining access to a gun. Gun control laws only really affect those who are buying a gun legally. Why would you allow for less people to be able to buy a gun legally and more people to buy it illegally? That seems like bad planning to me. Instead of focusing on gun control laws, maybe we should be focusing on laws that will punish those that illegally carry a gun and actually hurt people on purpose with them!

This issue is mainly centered on reform in the area of medical mal- practice. America’s health care system is hinged on the ability of physicians in the U.S. to practice medicine with the best interests of the patient in mind. In this day and age physicians are forced to limit their practices to low risk procedures. America’s physicians can no longer take on patients without a complete background check to see if they are sick or simply in the business of searching for their next lawsuit. Tort reform in the area of medical malpractice will drastically improve the quality of healthcare in the United States. President Bush has proposed setting a $250,000 cap on non-economic damages.

The fight over tort reform with respect to medical malpractice has been going on for over 30 years. It has been rekindled in the past ten years due to the tremendous spike in malpractice insurance premiums.
Physicians are currently paying anywhere from $30,000 to $200,000 annually for insurance. When one combines the out of control insurance premiums and the cost of practicing defensive medicine, it is easy to understand why there are such low incentives to enter the medical field. When people talk about doctors, they seem to harp on the amount of money physicians earn. And why shouldn’t they? After all, these men and women did nothing in the way of education or painstaking work to get to where they are; they simply pulled the doctor card out of a magical hat and are now on easy street.

Tort reform is a simple issue when one looks at it from a humanistic point of view: if doctors are forced to practice defensive medicine, patients lose. In Fairfield County, Connecticut, not only have more and more physicians stopped performing high risk and sometimes life saving procedures and removed themselves from HMO panels, but also are being forced to decline patients with Medicaid and/or Medicare insurance. They have also reduced the amount of free or charity care given to patients without insurance or for other reasons. If reform is not enacted soon, patients will likely find themselves with an even greater reduction of medical services, an ever increasing shortage of specialists and higher costs. Another important and sometimes overlooked issue is the recruitment of new physicians. Doctors say it is increasingly more difficult to recruit new physicians into their practices, keeping up with staffing requirements and upgrading their medical and business technology so that they are on par with the most advanced patient care.

The Bush administration is trying to model its proposal for medical liability reform on MICRA. MICRA (Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act) was enacted in California in 1975. It allows plaintiffs to win no more than $250,000 in non-economic damages or pain and suffering. Along with capping non-economic damages, MICRA limits attorney contingency fees, thus limiting the incentive for lawyers to push their clients to go to trial. Before MICRA was enacted in California, malpractice rates were climbing as much as 100% annually. After the act was passed by the state legislature, rates fell to nearly single digits.

The Bush administration can simply cite the success of MICRA in order to promote their own national proposal. Other states have also taken strides in the right direction towards reform. Florida, Texas and Pennsylvania are a few of the dozen states that have passed some form of medical liability tort reform. California’s MICRA is, however, the most stringent and most effective. Even in states with reform, insurance premiums are out of control. An obstetrician in Miami may find themselves paying $250,000 per year for malpractice insurance, whereas an obstetrician in Los Angeles may only be paying $69,000 per year for the exact same thing. The inequality in insurance premiums is not only unfair to the physician, but also to the patients, who are receiving limited care due to the astronomical premiums. Physicians in California say that MICRA has significantly helped their practices.

In this debate there are more ways than simply capping non-economic damages to help the problem. The first and most obvious way to help the problem is to limit the amount the lawyers can pocket from the patients. Another way to reduce jury payouts is to allow consideration of “collateral sources” in measuring damages. It is very important that juries are informed about any benefits injured patients have already received. These benefits are normally in the form of health or disability insurance policies.

The issue of tort reform in the area of medical malpractice is one of great contention. Those on both sides of the debate hold a tremendous deal of power and clout in government. Until the United States recognizes the seriousness of the problem and the Senate can move beyond partisan politics, our country’s health care system will continue to spiral downward.