Health Care Bill Blows a Kiss to Trial Lawyers

The health care bill recently unveiled by Speaker Pelosi is over 1,900 pages for a reason. It is much easier to dispense goodies to favored interest groups if they are surrounded by a lot of legislative legalese.

Section 2531, entitled “Medical Liability Alternatives,” establishes an incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation. [But]…… a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys’ fees or imposes caps on damages.

So, you can’t try to seek alternatives to lawsuits if you’ve actually done something to implement alternatives to lawsuits. Brilliant! The trial lawyers must be very happy today. Looks like Queen Kathy has found another way to give a kickback to her old trial lawyer friends. As you may remember she was the former Executive Director of the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association.