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February 01, 2005
Paging Dr. Sucker
The Georgia Senate, in its' infinite wisdom, engrossed SB 5, the tort reform bill AFTER it exited committee. Of course this sets a terrible precedent and is an unrivaled powergrab. One entity it really hurt, though, are Georgia's doctors. They've been whipped into a frenzy by their lobbying agents into supporting tort reform, with the promise that their medical malpractice premiums will be coming down.
Sen. David Adelman had an amendment that would do just that. It would mandate that in exchange for insurers getting tort reform, doctors would see their premiums go down by 10% by next year. Unfortunately for doctors, Adelman wasn't able to offer his amendment (the bill was already engrossed) and their premiums are now left up to the whims of their insurers.
So, to summarize, doctors agreed to carry the water of the insurance industry in order to lower their malpractice premiums. The insurance industry got their caps, everyday working Georgians got screwed, and doctors get no guarantee that their premiums will fall. For a group of people that go to college for 7 years, they sure don't seem to have learned much about politics.
Posted by Chris at February 1, 2005 06:38 PM
Comments
Sadder than the MDs getting fleeced are the little guys represented by the ambulance chasers that are going to lose the only voice they have when confronting the corporate military industrial complex that now totally controls the state (and federal) government.e
Posted by: Bruce at February 4, 2005 09:08 PM
A few things. You mean SB 3. SB 5 is Dan Moody's eminent domain public-private infrastructure piece, which Don Balfour recently called 'anathema to the people of Georgia'. ouch. But SB 3 was Tort Reform.
I was under the impression that the 10% reduction was MAG Mutual's attempt at a bribe of sorts to get support, not one of Adelman's amendments. I know that the Texas version of MAG Mutual did something similar (which is why people could quote at the hearings that Texas lowered its premiums). The thing about the 10%, is that if MAG Mutual had to garuntee a 10% reduction, that is a bit of proof that this bill will not actually lower premiums. Why would you have to offer such a garuntee, if the bill itself is supposedly designed to garuntee lower premiums?
Also, MAG Mutual is, um, a mutual company. I think that this means that profits are supposed to be returned to the investors as divideds. Guess who the investors are? The doctors. Last I heard, MAG Mutual was making a nice profit. Somthing to think on.
Posted by: BenK at February 5, 2005 02:53 PM
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