Just braggin'...

...about our terrific Democratic Senators from the Upper Left again.

The Senate Democrats turned back another attack on the rights of injured consumers to seek redress in the courts, this one with the Orwellian title "Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Act ." A filibuster against the effort to deny patients of OB/Gyn's the right to have a jury determine damages according to the merits of their cases instead of the desires of the Republican caucus (and, of course, their sponsors in the medical establishment and the insurance industry) was upheld with 45 votes, two of which came from Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington.

Their comments:

Cantwell:"I have asked many of these individuals what they believed the cap on damages should be. The fact that I have received answers ranging from zero to $5 million illustrates the difficulty in determining what a damage limit should be without reference to specific facts."

Murray:"This bill tells women that if we are injured, we don't deserve the same legal protections as men. I find some sad irony in being told by this bill's sponsors that if I want to help women and babies, I should strip away their rights."

This looks like it will shape up as an issue in Murray's re-election, with her challenger, Rep. George Nethercutt, telling reporters "When high insurance premiums drive people out, that's when we're endangering people's lives, and I think that's wrong...I've talked to doctors in my district and throughout the state and they tell me the same thing: We're losing OB/GYNs. It's anecdotal, but it's consistently anecdotal. It's absolute fact."

Well, no, George. It's absolute anecdote. Here are the facts:

According to the Washington State Hospital Association, "...no emergency rooms or trauma centers have closed in recent years...A few very small hospitals have stopped delivering babies in the past two or three years...the reason was not directly related to malpractice insurance, but rather to broader economic issues, such as doing too few deliveries or nearby competition, administrators said."

Patty's right, George is wrong, but she's still going to have to defend against his unfounded attacks. If helping a real champion of women and workers is on your to-do list this election season, you can start right here.