LETTERS
Frivolous Lawsuits
Re Chris Cziborr’s April 26 story, the Stop Shakedown Lawsuits Initiative will do just that,stop private lawyers who abuse Section 17200 of California’s Business and Professions Code, while protecting consumers whose rights have been harmed, despite the opponents’ claims.
The initiative does not take away a consumer’s right to sue; it only removes a trial attorney’s ability to sue that doesn’t have a client that has been harmed. The trial attorneys are opposed to this initiative because they no longer will be able to simply send letters to small businesses threatening lawsuits and demanding settlement payments.
California is the only state in the nation to have this type of law. In the rest of the country, the attorney general, district attorneys and some city attorneys handle these types of lawsuits. The initiative enhances the ability of our public attorneys to stop illegal merchandising and other unfair business practices by dedicating funding specifically to the enforcement of consumer protection laws insuring that the only group that actually benefits is that of the consumers in California, not an individual trial attorney that uses extortionist tactics.
Unfortunately, legislators in Sacramento have failed to reform this law to protect the thousands of innocent small business owners who have suffered from costly, frivolous lawsuits.
It is left to the voters to protect the state’s best companies, our small businesses, from threatening shakedown lawsuits.
John Sackrison
Executive Director
OC Automobile Dealers Association
Costa Mesa
Bush vs. Kerry on Healthcare
In his State of the Union address this year, President Bush said, “A government-run healthcare system is the wrong prescription. By keeping costs under control, expanding access and helping more Americans afford coverage, we will preserve the system of private medicine that makes America’s healthcare system the best in the world.”
Presidential challenger Sen. Kerry would get the federal government more deeply involved in healthcare.
Bush says he’s pushing for more consumer choice. His 2003 Health Savings Account legislation encourages people to use their own tax-free savings, because people buying health services causes doctors and hospitals to treat the patient rather than the insurance company.
Bush also favors more competition in health insurance. He promotes association health plans, where church, business, fraternal or other groups of affiliated people could negotiate insurance packages for members, just like employers.
Kerry wants the government to pay for 75% of healthcare costs that are more than $50,000 for insured employees, thus aiding employers. But employers would have to follow a number of government mandates in order to qualify for this subsidy.
Kerry also would establish more government programs and increase the size of existing ones, such as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
Kerry has adopted part of a Heritage Foundation proposal to allow “all Americans” to join the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which he notes offers federal employees “a wide choice of affordable health plans with group protections and good benefits.”
Kerry proposes reforms to “keep Medicare strong, instead of privatizing it.” This implies that the private purchasing and competition inherent in the FEHBP wouldn’t apply to Medicare recipients but that these seniors would have to deal with an even more stringent bureaucracy.
Kerry claims his changes “would provide healthcare coverage to nearly 27 million Americans who were previously uninsured, while making healthcare more affordable for millions of others.”
The price tag for all of this? Kerry says $72 billion per year, but the figure is virtually impossible to verify.
However, we can be sure that the cost estimate is way low. Indeed, the history of state medicine shows the same pattern. Initial estimates of costs are so understated that not even the advocates believe them. As costs skyrocket, it becomes necessary to at least pretend to constrain them.
This is done in two ways: by micro-management (read here, endless paperwork and criminal prosecutions) and rationing (withholding care). It’s a political racket.
Of course, Congress and changing times will modify any healthcare proposal. But the direction each presidential candidate would go is clear from their past actions and votes. Kerry believes in more government control. Bush believes in more individual choice and freedom.
Dr. Michael Arnold Glueck
Newport Beach
Dr. Robert J. Cihak
Kirkland, Wash.
Environment Votes
The California League of Conservation Voters (conservation, not conservative), has awarded state Senators Ackerman, Johnson and Morrow and Assembly Members Pacheco, Campbell and Bates perfect scores on their yearly voting record for bills they voted on that had to do with the environment. Their total votes in favor of any environmental issue was exactly zero.
Admittedly, all the bills were probably not deserving of a yes vote,even Sen. Dunn voted no on 10% of the bills in 2003 and 6% in 2002. But it’s amazing to think that every single bill was so bad that not even once could any of them vote in the affirmative.
It’s a shame that our elected officials are so (forget partisan) dogmatic that if they think it is good for the environment, it must be a bad bill.
Also, Assembly Member Maddox voted for the environmental bills 5% of the time each year, as did Spitzer in 2002.
Ed St. Amour
Mesa Verde
