Quoted from Pacific Research Institute

U.S. Tort Liability Index: 2008 Report
Pacific Research Institute Study
By: Lawrence J. McQuillan, Ph.D, Hovannes Abramyan
3.11.2008

The U.S. Tort Liability Index: 2008 Report measures the best and worst tort systems in America. The Pacific Research Institute developed the Index as a tool for governors and state legislators to assess their tort systems and to enact laws that will improve the business climates of their states. The study helps predict the winners and losers in the race for jobs and business investment. It is also useful for business leaders who are deciding where to start a new business, build a new plant, expand operations, introduce a new product, or hire more employees. States that rank worse in the study are less likely to lead in these areas.

An efficient tort system is an important part of a thriving free-enterprise economy. It ensures that firms have proper incentives to produce safe products in a safe environment, and that truly injured people are fully compensated. An efficient tort system results in greater trust among market participants, leading to more trading, and eventually a higher standard of living for individuals in the society. An efficient tort system benefits all.

A poor tort system, on the other hand, imposes excessive costs on society, not the least of which is foregone production of goods and services. There is growing evidence that U.S. tort costs are far greater than other countries’ costs and that much of the difference is due to excessive litigation and lawsuit abuse. All of us shoulder the burden of an excessively expensive and inefficient tort liability system through higher prices, lower wages, decreased returns on investments in capital and land, restricted access to health care, and less innovation. Businesses that spend more money each year on liability insurance have less money available for research and development or for health benefits for their employees. All of us pay the price, whether we realize it or not.

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Quoted from Heritage.org:

How will cap-and-tax affect your state?

August 21, 2009 | By Amanda Reinecker

A new study released by The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis reveals the tremendous costs and energy price spikes that each state will incur should Congress enact the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation.

“Inevitably the bill will affect each state differently,” explains Heritage’s energy and economic policy team. “Some states are more energy-intensive than others, and some rely a great deal on manufacturing to fuel their economies. Regardless, the costs in every state are significant.”

» Find out how the legislation will affect your state

Waxman-Markey’s financial burden will eventually trickle down to individual families. Heritage experts predict annual energy costs for a family of four to grow by $1,241 — $4,609 if you include the new taxes — forcing families to reduce consumption of goods and services by $3,000 each year as incomes and savings fall. This forced cutback will hurt job growth and ultimately weaken the economy, leaving America approximately $9.4 trillion poorer by 2035.

And all of these costs will get us “no more than a 0.2 degree (Celsius) moderation in world temperature increases by 2100 and no more than a 0.05 degree reduction by 2050.” That’s certainly not much of an environmental benefit, especially considering the adverse impact the bill imposes on American families.

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August 24th, 2009 – Heritage.org

Last week NBC News released a poll showing that while 36% of Americans believed President Barack Obama’s health care plan was a “good idea,” 42% of Americans believed it was a “bad idea.” NBC’s explanation for this inconvenient truth? “Misperceptions about the president’s plans for reform … that nonpartisan fact-checkers say are untrue.” Specifically NBC found that 55% of Americans believed Obamacare “will give health insurance coverage to illegal immigrants,” 54% believed it “will lead to a government takeover of the health care system,” 50% believed it “will use taxpayer dollars to pay for women to have abortions,” and 45% believed it “will allow the government to make decisions about when to stop providing medical care to the elderly.” -Click here for the rest of the article-

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Quoted from http://www.heritage.org/Press/FactSheet/fs0036.cfm:

July 30, 2009
Obamacare: One Pill, Two Pill, Red Pill, Blue Pill

Top 10 Reasons Obamacare Is Wrong for America

1. Millions Will Lose Their Current Insurance. Period. End of Story: President Obama wants Americans to believe they can keep their insurance if they like, but research from the government, private research firms, and think tanks show this is not the case. Proposed economic incentives, plus a government-run health plan like the one proposed in the House bill, would cause 88.1 million people to see their current employer-sponsored health plan disappear.
2. Your Health Care Coverage Will Probably Change Anyway: Even if you kept your private insurance, eventually most remaining plans-whether employer plans or individual plans-would have to conform to new federal benefit standards. Moreover, the necessary plan “upgrades” will undoubtedly cost you more in premiums.
3. The Umpire Is Also the First Baseman: The main argument for a “public option” is that it would increase competition. However, if the federal government creates a health care plan that it controls and also sets the rules for the private plans, there is little doubt that Washington would put its private sector “competitors” out of business sooner or later.
4. The Fed Picks Your Treatment: President Obama said: “They’re going to have to give up paying for things that don’t make them healthier. … If there’s a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half for the thing that’s going to make you well.” Does that sound like a government that will stay out of your health care decisions?
5. Individual Mandate Means Less Liberty and More Taxes: Although he once opposed the idea, President Obama is now open to the imposition of an individual mandate that would require all Americans to have federally approved health insurance. This unprecedented federal directive not only takes away your individual freedom but could cost you as well. Lawmakers are considering a penalty or tax for those who don’t buy government-approved health plans.
6. Higher Taxes Than Europe Hurt Small Businesses: A proposed surtax on the wealthy will actually hit hundreds of thousands of small business ownerswho are dealing with a recession. If it is enacted, America’s top earners and job creators will carry a larger overall tax burden than France, Italy, Germany, Japan, etc., with a total average tax rate greater than 52%. Is that the right recipe for jobs and wage growth?
7. Who Makes Medical Decisions? What is the right medical treatment and should bureaucrats determine what Americans can or cannot have? While the House and Senate language is vague, amendments offered in House and Senate committees to block government rationing of care were routinely defeated. Cost or a federal health board could be the deciding factors. President Obama himself admitted this when he said, “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller,” when asked about an elderly woman who needed a pacemaker.
8. Taxpayer-Funded Abortions? Nineteen Democrats recently asked the President to not sign any bill that doesn’t explicitly exclude “abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan” or any bill that allows a federal health board to “recommend abortion services be included under covered benefits or as part of a benefits package.” Currently, these provisions do not exist.
9. It’s Not Paid For: The CBO says the current House plan would increase the deficit by $239 billion over 10 years. And that number will likely continue to rise over the long term. Similar entitlement bills in the past, including Medicare, have scored much lower than their actual eventual cost.
10. Rushing It, Not Reading It: We’ve been down this road before-with the failed stimulus package. Back then, we also heard that we were in a crisis and that we needed to pass a 1,000-plus-page bill in a few hours-without reading it–or we would have 8% unemployment. Well, we know what happened. Now, one Congressman has even said it’s pointless to read one of the reform bills without two days and two lawyers to make sense of it. Deception is the only reason to rush through a bill nobody truly understands.

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Quoted from Kansas Liberty

Here are some facts about Dennis Moore-Democrat-3rd District of Kansas

1. As of August 4, 2009, Dennis has voted with Democratic House Leadership 98.1% of the time.

2. After taking $1,172,306 in campaign money from the labor sector in his career, Dennis Moore has voted for and is a current co-sponsor of card check legislation which would take away a worker’s right to a secret ballot.

3. Within the first two months of the current Congress, Dennis Moore voted to approve 1.2 trillion dollars in new spending: that breaks down to a billion dollars an hour over the first 50 days of Congress.

Kansas Liberty: 07 August 2009

Self-styled ‘Blue Dog’ Democrat? Voting records show he supports 98 percent of Pelosi’s agenda

GOP targets Dennis Moore for defeat

“Dennis Moore campaigned on a promise of putting Kansas first, yet six months into this Congress he has done nothing but put his party’s reckless policies first,” Paul Lindsay, an NRCC spokesman, told Kansas Liberty today.

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government medicine,national healthcare

From RealClearPolitics.com

August 7, 2009

Government Medicine Should Horrify Americans

By Deroy Murdock

The state guides health care for our two closest allies: Great Britain and Canada. Like us, these are prosperous, industrial, Anglophone democracies. Nevertheless, compared to America, they suffer higher death rates for diseases, their patients experience severe pain, and they ration medical services.

Look what you’re missing in the U.K.:

* Breast cancer kills 25 percent of its American victims. In Great Britain, the Vatican of single-payer medicine, breast cancer extinguishes 46 percent of its targets.

* Prostate cancer is fatal to 19 percent of its American patients. The National Center for Policy Analysis reports that it kills 57 percent of Britons it strikes.

* Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data show that the U.K.’s 2005 heart-attack fatality rate was 19.5 percent higher than America’s. This may correspond to angioplasties, which were only 21.3 percent as common there as here.

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Representative Government: Some of the Democrats who want to hijack American health care are not exactly getting a warm welcome from voters back home. It’s inspiring to watch our system in action.

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Courtesy of The Heritage Foundation at Heritage.org

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Members of Congress have been working frantically to bring the cost of the health care bill below $1 trillion, make it “deficit-neutral,” per the President’s instructions, and meet Blue Dogs’ expectations that it be “paid for.” As the Congressional Budget Office has pointed out, so far they’ve had no such luck.

Get more details here

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