The American Spectator

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OVERLAWYERED
Our Democrats in Washington have decided to nationalize health care this year. Our health care costs about $1.5 trillion annually (it should be called sick care -- care of the healthy costs little or nothing) in order to decrease this cost while extending health insurance to all 300 million citizens from the 250 million insured now. Of this total cost of $1.5 trillion about one third or $500 billion is spent on malpractice insurance and defensive medicine.

The combined population of Japan, Germany, and Great Britain is some 250 million; those three countries have a total of 35,000 lawyers. We maintain some 1,100,000 lawyers in this country in the style to which they have become accustomed, which is very much higher than that of and average American professional.

How come this enormous difference? Well, in all developed countries except ours the loser in a court case pays all the costs, of the court and of the defendant, both direct and indirect; here the loser just walks away to sue somebody else, preferably a private drug corporation, a doctor, a hospital, or anybody with a deep pocket. Our trial lawyers are hyenas sucking the blood of this country's economy, with the help of phony experts and primitive juries.
-- Marc Jeric
Las Vegas, Nevada