It’s only dead if you kill it, moron!

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(CBS) Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the health care bill passed last night by the House of Representatives is “dead on arrival to the Senate.”

Original DVD cover

Graham argued that the House bill was “written for liberals, by liberals.

“Just look at how it passed; it passed 220 to 215. It passed by two votes. You had [39] Democrats vote against the bill,” Graham told “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer Sunday.

He also admitted that if it were to come down to it, he would join his independent colleague Senator Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., in filibustering a bill including the so-called public option should it come to the Senate floor.

…snip…

Graham believed a public option would “destroy” private health care, saying that insurance companies could not compete against the lower premiums of a government-backed plan. “It will be a death blow to private choice,” he said.

Hey, Lindseypoo, most people would applaud a death panel to sentence health insurance companies to oblivion. In fact, I, for one, would volunteer to help beat them to death with a wet teabag.

Schieffer asked Senator Jack Reed, D-R.I., whether he believed that Senate Democrats had the votes to pass the House bill considering it includes the so-called public option.

“I believe we are going to pass health care reform,” Reed responded.

…snip…

“Senator Reid, Harry Reid has introduced the public option and there is strong support there. but we are far from the end of the debate in the Senate. It will take time. It will be careful, thorough and deliberate.

“I hope that a public option is in the final bill,” he added.

…snip…

“Overwhelmingly, sixty percent of the American public want a public option and I think we should be listening to them as much as listening to ourselves,” Reed said.

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Addressing what he says is a major shortfall in congressional Democrats’ plans for a health care overhaul, Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia is co-sponsoring legislation he says would cut down on frivolous malpractice lawsuits that are often blamed for helping drive up health care costs.

Inclusion of such a proposal in any health care legislation could potentially win over Republican votes in Congress. Many Republicans have said they won’t vote for a health care overhaul unless it addresses tort reform.

President Barack Obama and other top Democrats agree that medical malpractice litigation is part of the problem behind high health care costs, but they have suggested that it should be up to individual states to experiment with how to deal with the issue.

…snip…

The so-called “loser pays” legislation introduced by Chambliss and Graham would require parties in medical malpractice claims to enter nonbinding arbitration to try to resolve disagreements.

If one or both of the parties reject an arbitrator’s decision, they could take the claim to court. But the losing party would be required to pay its opponents’ legal fees, which could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In other words, this is about the little guy getting screwed, because he doesn’t have the resources that the huge insurance companies do, as well as gagging anyone who would dare to disclose how they operate. Been there, done that, don’t get me started.

A recent report by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative public policy group, predicted that “loser pays” laws like those in other countries could significantly reduce frivolous lawsuits of all kinds.

Yet opponents say that’s just not the case — or the problem with health care.

According to the left-leaning advocacy group Public Citizen, malpractice litigation costs represent less than 1 percent of the total cost of health care in America.

“This is worse than bad, it’s really ridiculous,” David Arkush, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division, said of Chambliss and Graham’s proposal.

Arkush said that medical malpractice litigation costs have actually declined in recent years and are at an all-time low, despite the fact that overall health care costs continue to rise.

Attorney Robert Peck said the senators’ proposal isn’t just unnecessary, it’s dangerous for patients.

“It’s not going to solve any problems,” said Peck, president of a Washington, D.C., law firm called the Center for Constitutional Litigation. “But it will significantly destroy the access to the courts for patients injured by the negligence of their health care providers.”

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Tags: arbitration, conservatives, filibuster, health care, Health Insurance, malpractice, Manhattan Institute, Public Citizen, public option, Saxby Chambliss, Tort Reform