lol. And that immediately following “the people who come tonight.” If Haggard is trying to convey the impression that he’s NOT some sort of wang-obsessed horndoggy, he’s failing spectacularly.

Alternate headline: Up the keister for Easter.

Can you provide me with any of the relevant info regarding Nortel’s American employees on LTD that are going to be bailed-out by Erisa? It’s my understanding the the US plan was self-funded, and I also understood that your ERISA provides the exemption in the same way that our crappy provincial legislation exempts benefits not covered by insurance contracts. I need to understand how ERISA is being used to save the NORTEL LTD people in the U.S. so I can shove it into the faces of our apathetic politicians!

Could you help please? Thanks so much.

Well the GOA had this to say about tort reform:

“But even large savings in premiums can have only a small direct impact on health care spending–private or governmental–because malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of that spending.”

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=4968&type=0#t3

And of course there is Tillinghast-Towers Perrin (the company that provides risk management for the insurance and reinsurance industry).

According to the actuarial consulting firm Towers Perrin, medical malpractice tort costs were $30.4 billion in 2007, the last year for which data are available. We have a more than a $2 trillion health care system. That puts litigation costs and malpractice insurance at 1 to 1.5 percent of total medical costs. That’s a rounding error. Liability isn’t even the tail on the cost dog. It’s the hair on the end of the tail.

Of that 1 to 1.5 percent what portion of that is “frivolous”

http://www.towersperrin.com/tp/getwebcachedoc?webc=USA/2008/200811/2008_tort_costs_trends.pdf (Page 10)

Tort reform is a red herring. It is unfortunate that everyone is so willing to give up their right to sue with such a small cost to society. If that is the case then maybe we should have death panels for the elders.