Tag Archives: Lawyer

Why did 77% of young unmarried women vote for Obama in 2008?

Consider this analysis from a left-wing site of the 2008 election.

Excerpt:

On Tuesday, the nation made history. It made history in electing the first African American president; it made history in building a bigger margin for the first female Speaker of the House; it made history in delivering the biggest Democratic margin since 1964; it made history in sending a record number of people to the polls and the highest percentage turnout since the 1960 election.

[…]But one thing is immediately clear. Unmarried women played a pivotal role in making this history and in changing this nation. They delivered a stunning 70 to 29 percent margin to Barack Obama and delivered similarly strong margins in races for Congress and the U.S. Senate. Although unmarried women have voted Democratic consistently since marital status has been was tracked, this election represents the highest margin recorded and a 16-point net gain at the Presidential level from 2004.

In particular, note the chart that shows that younger unmarried women voted 77-22 for Obama. 77-22 for Obama. This is actually in keeping with my previous post on this topic, which documented how women have continuously voted for bigger and bigger government since they started voting. The problem with big government policies is that they drain money from the family which is then redistributed outside of the family.

To have a strong family, you need more than just money. You need independence so that you can keep your vision distinct and separate from the vision of the government. If a family depends on the government, then they are beholden to the government’s values. The government can even overrule conscience rights and religious liberty. Keeping the family strong and separate from government is especially important for Christian parents who have a specific goal of passing on their faith to their children.

Here are just a few of the things I thought of that help make a marriage strong: (there are many more)

  • low taxes so the household has more money to spend on the things we need for our plan
  • access to low cost energy provided by domestic energy production by private firms
  • access to low cost, high quality consumer goods through increased free trade
  • the ability to choose homeschooling or private schools (and the more school choice, the better)
  • the ability to fund a retirement plan that covers the family – not anyone else
  • the ability to purchase a health care plan that covers the family – not anyone else
  • the ability to own firearms for protection of the home and the family
  • the ability to pass Christian convictions on to children without interference from the state
  • the ability to speak and act as a Christian in public without reprisals from secular left special interest groups
  • low threat of being the victim of criminal activity
  • low threat of being bankrupted by the costs of divorce court
  • low threat of being arrested on a false domestic violence charge (e.g. – verbal abuse)
  • low threat of never seeing your children because of loss of custody after a divorce
  • low threat of being imprisoned due to failure to pay alimony and child support after a job loss

It seems to me that a vote for Obama is a vote against all of these things. So then why did unmarried women (especially Christian women) vote for him? It seems as thought they are less interested in marriage and family and more interested in having the government provide incentives for anti-child, anti-family behaviors like pre-marital sex, contraceptives, abortions, welfare for single mothers, divorce courts, government coercion of husbands, state-run day-care, government-run schools, in-vitro fertilization, etc. I don’t mind if people need these things, but they should pay for it themselves. but I don’t see why unmarried women should favor family money being spent on government programs that help other people to avoid the cost and consequences of their own decisions.

How Texas cut costs by reforming medical malpractice suits

Here’s some great news from the conservative state of Texas. (H/T Caffeinated Thoughts)

Excerpt:

The Texas Legislature in 2003 adopted sweeping changes to its civil justice system that significantly altered when, where and how many lawsuits could be filed. In the medical malpractice area, those reforms were basically threefold.

[…]First, to sustain a lawsuit against the medical care provider, an expert report was required within 120 days of filing the suit stating that the doctor being sued committed a medical error that caused injuries.

[…]Second, noneconomic damages were capped to control arbitrary awards on pain and suffering or loss of consortium.

[…]The third significant tort reform was to prohibit the introduction into evidence of phantom damages.

[…]These common-sense reforms have led to a massive increase in the accessibility of health care in Texas, huge growth in the capital infrastructure of hospitals and clinics, hundreds of millions of dollars more each year in charity care and Texas’ adding more than 16,000 new doctors in just six years.

And in reducing the actual number of suits to those in which claims are meritorious — a recent Harvard study concluded that up to 85% of all lawsuits brought against medical providers were frivolous — we have created a more equitable system of justice.

I wish I lived in Texas – that’s a real red state, except for stupid Austin. By the way, I got this story out of the round-up at Caffeinated Thoughts. There are couple of great articles in there, like one on the North Korean gulags. It’s worth a look. Shane always links to very interesting articles.

Why the Democrats won’t reform medical malpractice laws

In the USA, doctors are sued all the time by patients for “medical malpractice”. Sometimes the lawsuits have merit and sometimes they don’t. But because the payoffs are so high, plaintiffs have every reason to sue. Doctors must carry expensive insurance against frivolous lawsuits, and they also perform many unnecessary tests and procedures to reduce their exposure to potential lawsuits. This raises the cost of health care.

Consider this Wall Street Journal article.

Excerpt:

Eliminating defensive medicine could save upwards of $200 billion in health-care costs annually, according to estimates by the American Medical Association and others. The cure is a reliable medical malpractice system that patients, doctors and the general public can trust.

But this is the one reform Washington will not seriously consider. That’s because the trial lawyers, among the largest contributors to the Democratic Party, thrive on the unreliable justice system we have now.

Consider how this affects obstetricians:

Former [Democrat] Sen. John Edwards, for example, made a fortune bringing 16 cases against hospitals for babies born with cerebral palsy. Each of those tragic cases was worth millions in settlement. But according to a 2006 study at the National Institutes of Health, in nine out of 10 cases of cerebral palsy nothing done by a doctor could have caused the condition.

Unreliable justice is like pouring acid over the culture of health care. One in 10 obstetricians have stopped delivering babies, unable to pay malpractice premiums on the order of $1,000 per baby, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). Some hospitals, including Methodist Hospital and Chestnut Hill Hospital in Philadelphia, have stopped delivering babies altogether; and the number of unnecessary caesarian sections have increased to the detriment of the health of mothers, according to the ACOG.

Read the whole thing.

Unfortunately for us, some trial lawyers pay a lot of money to Democrats to make sure that their activities will not be curtailed by legislation. And the Democrats dance to their tune. I cannot for the life of me figure out why doctors continue to provide medical care to these medical malpractice lawyers.