Today's Post Bulletin editorial states that Congresswoman Bachmann is "on to something" in being silent about tort reform. The paper interprets her silence as lack of support for the GOP standard answer for lowering health care costs.
Really?
In a mid-December exchange with Sean Hannity, Michele Bachmann said that malpractice reform would reduce health care costs for ninety-five percent of Americans. Here's the exchange:
MR. HANNITY: I have some ideas. Portability is one, tort reform is another, medical savings accounts, tax cuts for people that don't have health care. I never thought you had to overhaul the whole system that a lot of people found to be the best in the world. But how do you respond to the charge, the bumper sticker, the slogan that Democrats keep saying, well, the Republicans are just the party of no? How do you respond to that?
MS. BACHMANN: Well, we have a very simple plan, Sean. It's, every American owns their own health care, not their employer, not government. They can purchase any plan from any state in any amount they want, do it all with their own tax-free money, fully deduct the rest of it. True lawsuit abuse reform, that cuts health-care costs for 95 percent of American people. For those who truly, through no fault of their own, can't purchase health care, we can take care of those people with vouchers, with tax credits. Bingo! Try that rather than a huge imposition of government bureaucracy. People would much prefer to see us try innovation and competition, not an iron ceiling on wages post $59,000. (Transcript, "Hannity Interview with Representative Michele Bachmann"; December 14, 2009; via Nexis, February 5, 2010)
To view the exchange, go to Michele Bachmann's YouTube channel and watch the clip here. I found it via the front page of her official Congressional website under the Videos section:
Health Care Update
It's the most recent example of Bachmann supporting tort reform, although examples of her agreement on this central piece of proposed Republican health care reform abound. Most significant is her widely circulated column with Representative Burgess touting both tax deductions for medical expenses and medical tort reform. It was published in the Washington Examiner, for example, under the title, Real reform doesn't demand government invention. Bachmann invited Representative Burgess to speak at her own heath care reform town hall in Lake Elmo last year (a link to the full-length video from the Uptake is available) then joined him last week at a campaign event for CD1 GOP hopeful Allen Quist that was billed a "town hall." All of this being the case, I was baffled by the editorial judgment of the Rochester Post Bulletin editorial board which wrote today in Editorial: Bachmann's visit demonstrates why her star is rising, a paean to her sphinx-like quietude on medical malpractice:
. . .During a question-and-answer period, a member of the audience urged Bachmann and her guest, Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, to make tort reform a centerpiece of Republican health care proposals. "You can cut costs 20 percent just with tort reform," he said.
Burgess, a doctor who was born in Rochester, took the microphone and talked about how malpractice insurance costs are out of control, and how doctors began flocking to Texas after it put limits on malpractice damage awards in 2003. Minutes later, however, he was challenged by another audience member and admitted that patients in Texas have yet to see a drop in health care costs as a result of tort reform. . . .
Bachmann, meanwhile, didn't touch the issue. Instead, she advocated health-care savings accounts and giving people the right to buy insurance across state lines. She also wants all health care costs to be tax-deductible. . . .
. . . In short, she pushed every button that a good GOP operative should push — except tort reform.
We don't think this was an accidental omission. We went to her campaign Web site, and tort reform isn't mentioned in her "On the Issues" discussion of health care reform. Yes, she's advocated tort reform in the past, but usually as an afterthought, a small part of a much larger fix that our system needs.
She's onto something.
We agree that some doctors — most notably obstetricians — are paying too much for malpractice insurance, to the point that some are abandoning their practices. Furthermore, there's no question that fear of litigation prompts some physicians to "overtest" patients, just to be on the safe side.
But we're still waiting to see any evidence or hard numbers indicating that tort reform will make a significant dent in our nation's health care costs. Until that happens (we're not holding our collective breath), we urge the GOP to stop overstating the problem of frivolous malpractice lawsuits, and we urge Democrats to stop pretending the problem doesn't exist.
And the next time Bachmann comes to Rochester, Democrats and Republicans alike would be well-advised to hear what she has to say. Whether you admire her or despise her, she's a major player whose profile is likely to rise even higher before we go to the polls in November.
Citing her silence at this particular meeting as proof of her lack of support for the GOP health care policy staple of medical liability reform is pure fantasy on the part of the Post Bulletin board. How unfortunate for the individuals doing the research that they were unable to locate Congresswoman Bachmann's official congressional website nor the column she wrote last year with the Texas representative who would later be her fellow guest at Allen Quist's campaign event. Moreover, if the paper wishes to praise a member of congress who has examined and rejected wholesale medical liability reform--and who has said as much publicly, citing the example of how the Texas reforms failed to bring down medical care costs--perhaps the Post Bulletin might look closer to home. Indeed, the Post Bulletin's fantasy reading of Bachmann's perceived silence is even more breathtaking in light of what the rest of the country was hearing the Sixth District Congresswoman say in the video of the Quist event the paper posted on its web site. Doubtless the attention brought traffic to the newspaper's web counters--or at least those measuring the views of the video. Didn't the paper notice a spike in traffic--or wonder why? Something Congresswoman Bachmann actually said--rather than what the PB editorial board imagines it heard in the silence--drew national attention to the event, in a catch first made by Eric Roper at the Strib's Hotdish Politics. CNN's Rick List noted:
Moving on, spot two on this "List That You Don't Want To Be On," it goes to Congresswoman The Minnesota Republican speaking before a group of citizens, she said this: "In Japan, people have stopped voicing their opinion on health care. There are things that are wrong with Japanese health care, but people are afraid of voicing, well, because they know that they would get them on a list and then they wouldn't get any health care."
That's what she said in a speech. Wow. Really? That happens in Japan. If people complain, then they're put on a list and they're not allowed to get health care? What's her source on that? Don't you wonder? Some guy. No, really, some guy.
She says "a fellow who ran into me in the hall" in Washington, D.C., told her the Japan story, and she repeated it in a formal speech, and uses it as a shocking anecdote to illustrate a possible American future of so-called gangster government and absolute corruption when it comes to health care -- a guy in the hallway.
By the way, we checked and we found out that there's no credible evidence whatsoever of what Bachmann's friend in the hallway said about the Japanese health care system. Michele Bachmann finds herself on that the "List You Don't Want To Be On." (Transcript, "More AIG Outrage; Tea Party Mobilizing; Toyota Troubles Accelerating," CNN, "Rick's List, February 3, 2010, Nexis, accessed Feb. 5, 2010)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN): Government takeover of health care is the crown jewel of socialism and I will fight it -
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Minnesota Republican Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann just yesterday still campaigning to kill health reform, which presumably she wouldn`t be doing if the bill weren`t alive.
Health reform is alive enough that its opponents are still even inventing new conspiracy theories to use against it. Health reform was once, you recall, a secret plot to kill old people. Then, it was a secret plot to hurt veterans. Then, it was a secret plot to deny health care to all Republicans.
If you can`t get enough of the kooky conspiracy theories about health reform, I have some good news. Now, crazy health reform conspiracy theories are turning Japanese.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BACHMANN: They showed me a little card that was about this big. And he said, "This is my card from when I lived in Japan." And Japan had the government takeover of health care. They said, "This is something that people don`t know. In Japan, people have stopped voicing their opinion on health care."
They said that because they know that they would get on a list and they would not get health care. They wouldn`t get in. They wouldn`t get seen. And so people are afraid. They`re afraid to speak back to government. They are afraid to say anything. Is that what we want for our future? That takes us to gangster government at that point.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Michele Bachmann warning that the Japanese were all secretly born in Kenya or something. You know, this is what the five-yard looks like. The Democrats are in the offense. They are one play away from the end-zone. . . .(Transcript, The Rachel Maddow Show for February 2, 2010, Nexis, accessed Feb. 5, 2010)
That same day, Keith Olbermann's Countdown commented on the video clip:
OLBERMANN:
. . .If Mr. McCain has turned the "party of no" into the party of no personal integrity, add in Frank Luntz` advice to just lie about financial reform, and you get Michele Bachmann`s warning to Minnesota: complain about health care reform, and you`ll get put on a list in Japan. It`s the Mikado all of a sudden.
Luntz, next; first, a "Quick Comment" on Bachmann.
OLBERMANN: And now, tonight`s first "Quick Comment" -- between John McCain`s self-contradiction and Frank Luntz` advice, just lie, which we`ll talk about in a moment.
The Republicans are slowly revealing their newest policy: say anything -- because they believe that the Republicans to whom they are talking are literally so stupid that they`ll believe anything.
Michele Bachmann, who has mentally not been on this planet for at least three years, told a small gathering in Rochester, Minnesota, this terrible secret: some guy stopped her and told her he used to live in Japan. She didn`t get his name or nothing. But he told her, quote, "In Japan, people have stopped voicing their opinion on health care," he said it`s because they know they would get on a list, and then they wouldn`t get health care, they wouldn`t get in, they wouldn`t get seen.
And so, people are afraid. They`re afraid to speak back to government. They`re afraid to say anything.
Is that what we want for our future? That takes us to gangster government at that point.
So if you criticize American health care, you get on a list in Japan? Or if you criticize American health care you get on a list in America? Or Michele Bachmann just believes every random stranger who comes up and tells her a story about Japan, and she assumes it`s going to come true here?
As to health care reform, the congresswoman concluded, "I will fight it until my last breath." OK.
The local new and social media also jumped on Roper's post. But the Post Bulletin? It's praising something she didn't say--and what they imagine that silence means. Screenshot: One added--though short-lived bonus--on the absurd editorial was the headline. Those readers hooked on phonics will hear how close the typo "Bachamann" sounds to the joke my friend David made in Japan, that she is a Baka (idiot)mann. Not so to the PB, who hold her up as an example of sphinx-like wisdom. The typo has been corrected, but preserved in the screenshot
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