People Are Getting the Short End of the Stick

As Robert Scheer elaborated at AlterNet, this is the Administration and Congress Of, By and For Big Business. Well the roll continues. After passing limitations on class action lawsuits, which allows corporations to search for the friendliest court. Bush announced he was moving on to limiting asbestos awards (Halliburton has a major suit in process against them) and malparactice awards. Bush is quoted as saying: "We're making important progress toward a better legal system," he said during an East Room signing ceremony for the class-action bill. 'There's more to do.'"

Might we ask for whom?

Well the House of Representatives has approved a $350,000 cap on pain and suffering for medical malpractice cases. The bill will move on to the Senate where it is likely to pass (unless they want to cut that amount), and Bush will certainly sign it.

Meanwhile a bill in the Senate has passed to greatly restrict access to personal bankruptcy. The Senate rejected any amendments to assist service people on active duty, the elderly, and those sinking under medical debt. It is expected to sail through the House when it gets there.

So big business wins on class action. A major win since they were protected on the employee side by Worker's Compensation which limits employer liability for injuries to their workers. Now they have the long sought after protect from the public who they might injure. That's tidy.

The medical malpractice will be more of a boon to Insurance companies and corporate medicine than to doctors. And it has been widely reported that those states which have set that limit have had no reduction in the cost of insurance or medical care (or even slower increases in costs). I'm sure the winners will belly laugh all the way to the bank.

The personal bankruptcy had been tinkered with before, but this one will move the credit issuing companies closer to their dreams - banning personal bankruptcy all together. Lest you think that wastrels are filling the bankruptcy courts, almost 50% of bankruptcies are for medical expenses, unemployment and underemployment for replacement jobs make up even more. Throw in divorce and these causes alone account for the overwhelming majority of the bankruptcies sought in the US. It is clear that the people are not at the top of the list here.

One might think that the whole Social Security flap is nothing more than a smoke screen. This is not to downplay the Social Security issue since the elimination of the program has been an uber conservative goal for decades. But it is handy that the spot light on the Bush campaign (and it is a campaign) so neatly shoves the theft of citizen protection to the back pages (at best).