What happened to patient09's thread on Pelosi/healthcare?

Maybe they think higher tax rates have no impact on NYC RE values and thus make the thread irrelevant.

Ha - since when is relevance to NYC real estate values a precondition to threads here? Morning & happy sunday.

These taxes will kill small business and hiring at the lower ends of big companies.

I think the trail lawyers threatened a lawsuit...

http://www.triallawyersinc.com/updates/tli_update_healthcare_2009.html

n his nationally televised speech before both houses of Congress on September 9, President Obama made news by acknowledging that medical-malpractice litigation "may be contributing to unnecessary costs" in the U.S. health-care system. The president's comments were in keeping with popular opinion: 72 percent of Americans think that fear of lawsuits compromises doctor decisions, and fully 83 percent want any health-care reform to address medical-malpractice litigation.

Notwithstanding the president's remarks and popular opinion, Congress has been laboring to expand medical liability against nursing homes, medical-device makers, and military doctors—changes that would be expected to drive up, not down, health-care costs. The reason is simple: with massive campaign contributions and lobbying clout, the organized plaintiffs' bar—whom the Manhattan Institute has dubbed "Trial Lawyers, Inc."—has bought Congressional leaders' support. In the last election cycle, the trial lawyers' political action committee gave over $2.5 million to Congressional Democrats, making the plaintiffs' bar the second largest donor after the electrical workers' union (see graph). Overall, lawyers and law firms gave almost $234 million to federal campaigns in 2008, including almost $127 million to Congressional candidates—more than any other industry group and significantly more than all health-care-related contributions combined (see graph).

This legislation is very disappointing, It does nothing to cut costs, it just shifts the burden around. The legislation should have included Tort Reform and increased deductibles. How do you cut costs unless the consumer has an interest in seeking low cost alternatives. It's unfortunate the Trial Lawyers were able to block Obama's initiative in Tort reform. It's clear the law lobby spent a great deal of money and time to protect their interests at the expense of the grater good.

> How do you cut costs unless the consumer has an interest in seeking low cost alternatives.

Bingo.

Absolutely nutty.

Economics 101

This should lower costs...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/08/13/internal-memo-confirms-bi_n_258285.html

So, let me get this straight... the legislation which is supposed to give power to the government to negotiate with big pharma and reduce costs.. is being written by a white house which is selling itself to big pharma?