I hear the Right screaming for tort reform to be brought into the national healthcare debate. They use Texas as a shinning example of what it could mean for the nation if adopted nationally. Obviously, they have not studied the results closely.

Texas tort reform has brought about change…no doubt about it. It has limited compensation awards. It has limited the amount of dollars going into parastic plaintiff’s attorneys’ pockets, it has decreased the liability premiums physicians, hospitals, pharms and med equipment co’s are paying, and it has decreased the amount licensed Texas insurance companies are paying out in jury awards and settlements.

What no one is mentioning is the fact that none of these savings has filtered down to the consumer. Our insurance rates since tort reform in Texas came to pass have risen just as much, if not more, that the national average.

In the current healthcare debate, the D’s are protecting the plaintiff’s attorneys and the R’s are trying to make sure that the insurance companies, the physicians, the hospitals, the drug companies and the medical device manufactures are all protected from having to cough up some profit in return for added numbers to the insured rolls (many of which are healthy young adults) and the guaranteed payments this affords them.

Me and my neighbors are screwed anyway you look at it.