Attention, Texans

If you're reading this in Texas, get up and go vote. If it's not too late. No critters are running for office, but several propositions are up, including NUMBER 12, which would limit the amount you could sue a doctor for. Gov. Perry supports this measure, but he also supports redistricting. I can't equal the large ads in the newspaper or on TV, but I'll do what I can.

Here's a few items not in the ads:

• We already have caps on malpractice. And there's been a cap on public hospital malpractice for a long time: $10,000. The effect of this has been that no attorney will take your case, even if you can prove the staff put hemlock in your mother's IV, because all you can recover is $10,000, and the $3000-4000 the attorney would collect is not enough to cover the expenses of mounting a malpractice case.
• We're not suffering from lack of doctors (see the study in Friday Sept 5's Statesman).
• Malpractice insurance rates won't go down. They haven't in other states that have tried this ploy. Insurance rates do not go down. That is not their natural direction. Incidentally, taxicab drivers pay a proportionally larger amount of their income to insurance than do doctors. They obviously need better lobbyists.

Whatever your opinion, go vote. It's good practice.

5:21:49 PM