Even Tort Reform Proponents Oppose National Texas-Style Medical Malpractice Law
side note: This story is interesting because it illustrates the Catch-22 the Republican party faces with tort reform. The modern Republican party has aligned itself with libertarian and small-government, states’ rights proponents. They have also aligned themselves with the business and physician communities. The former think that the federal government has no right to impose a one-size-fits-all federal restrictions on the states; the latter wants federal tort reform that includes a federal cap on non-economic damages. These two ideologies naturally clash, which makes appeasing both segments of its political membership very difficult.
Posted by Andrew Cochran
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 11:00 EST
On September 12, Texas Governor Rick Perry called for federal tort reform during the GOP Presidential debate. “You want to talk about some powerful job creation, tell the trial lawyers to get out of your state and to quit costing businessmen and women. That’s what needs to happen in the states. and it’s also what needs to happen at the federal level, passing federal tort reform at those federal levels.” As I wrote on September 16, Gov. Perry now stands against some of the most respected Tea Party-side and conservative legal experts in America, who have written that a federal tort reform law is as unconstitutional as ObamaCare, and for the same reasons. But Gov. Perry also ignored two of the leadingproponents of tort reform, who conceded months ago that a Texas-style national limit on medical malpractice lawsuits is clearly unconstitutional.
