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Howard Dean Flip-Flops The Wrong Way on Health Care

By Matt Margolis | December 27, 2003

Another Howard Dean flip-flop has been unearthed – this time on medical liability reform.

On June 29, 1988, Howard Dean, then Lieutenant Governor of Vermont, wrote a letter to the editor in the New York Times regarding tort reform :

To the Editor:

Randall Bezanson and Gilbert Cranberg detailed a situation that I hope will get far worse. As a physician, I have been frustrated for years by the reluctance of state legislatures and the United States Congress to deal with liability problems of all kinds.

I have long maintained that until the legal profession and the news media are also afflicted with the increasingly severe consequences of a tort system that benefits few people outside the legal profession, there will be no return to a fair and reasonable system of justice.

The trends toward lawyers suing one another for malpractice and toward outrageous-size punitive damages in libel cases give me hope that the crisis in our tort system may finally come to the attention of those who can make this a public issue and improve the situation for all of us who require liability insurance to do business.

HOWARD DEAN, M.D.
Montpelier, Vt., June 17, 1988

Howard Dean’s current position on medical liability reform is much less enthusiastic – and quite wrong.

Based on his own words today, he makes no clear explanation about his position. He says we “need a medical malpractice system that works for both doctors and patients,” and says that “access to the courts is a fundamental civil right for all Americans, and many patients receive compensation for their injuries through the justice system.”

For a so-called physician, Howard Dean in order to avoid laying out details on this issue, has labeled it a state issue, he said “I support state efforts to discourage frivolous lawsuits while still holding the health care system accountable for its mistakes.”

Does it make any sense that one of Howard Dean’s big campaign issues is nationalized (read: socialized) healthcare, but he considers medical liability reform a state issue? All that will accomplish is crappy health care that will bust the national budget, and a mass exodus of doctors from states with lousy medical liability reform to states with good medical liability reform. And Howard Dean thinks just because he’s a so-called “physician” that he has the right answer on health care issues? His strange positions on socializing health care but leaving medical liability reform to the states prove he’s got the wrong answer on health care.

George W. Bush however, has the right answer. Earlier this month during a campaign luncheon, Bush gave the following remarks:

For the sake of our health care, we’ve got more to do. We need to cut down on the frivolous lawsuits, which increase the cost of medicine. People who have been harmed by a bad doc deserve their day in court. Yet the system should not reward lawyers who are simply fishing for a rich settlement. Frivolous lawsuits drive up the cost of health care and they, therefore, affect the federal budget. Medical liability reform is a national issue that requires a national solution.

Howard Dean’s proposals would cripple our health care system. He’s managed to flip flop the wrong way on this issue.

Howard Dean could learn a lot from George W. Bush. As someone with experience in the medical profession, Howard Dean should know that “no one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit.”

Thanks to Captain Ed over at Captain’s Quarters for giving me the heads up on Dean’s New York Times letter to the editor.
Originally Posted on Blogs For Bush