I promised myself after the November election of Barack Obama that I was not going to allow politics to make me angry. The whole point was to steel myself for what I expected to be the inevitable: The “mandated” attempt to socialize America. Sure enough our President has met or exceeded my expectations in most areas of policy. Even when I was writing fisking screeds about simpering “conservatives” I was laughing my ass off the entire time .. albeit with a large dollop of derision.

The following, however, Really. Pisses. Me. Off.

A friend points out a little nugget of absurdity and political mendacity in the Pelosi health-care bill. Remember Obama’s effort to try a “test” for tort reform? (We don’t actually need a test, since it has worked to lower medical malpractice coverage and help increase access to doctors in states that have tried it.) Well, Pelosi’s bill has an anti-tort-reform measure. On pages 1431-1433 of the 1990 spellbinder, there is a financial incentive for states to try “alternative medical liability laws.” But look — you don’t get the incentive if you have a law that would “limit attorneys’ fees or impose caps on damages.”

That’s what the trial lawyers get for the millions spent in supporting the Democratic party, and that’s what tort “reform” in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of health-care legislation amounts to. States will be strong-armed into repealing existing caps in order to get the Fed’s money. Sweet, huh? Well, unless you thought the aim was to reduce medical costs. No, this will go a long way toward ensuring that tort lawyers remain rich, malpractice insurance remains high, and unnecessary defensive medicine remains a fixture of the health-care system. Nice going, Nancy!

Seriously? Really? This is not some continuum warping inter-dimensional satire crafted by beings for whom time and space and simple moral decency have no matter or form? Because crackling bright orange flames of rage have spontaneously combusted around me and I have absolutely no desire to stomp them out.

Let me take a minute to review, just in case some long suppressed psychotic ID has crashed through the soft vellum of my mental controls and possessed me like a Haitian wolf spirit:

Madame Trussaud’s House of Wax Head pukestick Nancy Pelosi and her molting goo covered little grease monkey Steney Hoyer, along with any number of slavering, donkey poking, worm crawling with cheeks spread minions, inserted a clause in the current Shining Tower of Profligate Vulture Crap that is the current House Health Reform Bill that makes it … [pause to breathe … BREATHE!! …] harder for states to achieve tort reform?

Why yes, apparently so. Thus the bright orange flames of rage combust anew and threaten to engulf my entire office.

So why this? Why allow one tiny little clause in a Gibraltar sized bill to tip me over the edge? Before I answer that question let me grasp at straws for just a minute in a pathetic attempt to reign in my wrath. To the link above in the faint hope that the lovely Jennifer Ruben made some error …

ARRGH! Nope!

 (4) CONTENTS OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICAL LIABILITY LAW — The contents of an alternative liability law are in accordance with this paragraph if–

(A) the litigation alternatives contained in the law consist of certificate of merit, early offer or both; and

(B) the law does not limit attorney’s fees or impose caps on damages.

Excuse me a minute while I greet the nice firemen at my office door.

The flames burn because after several months of dissembling; of promises of not one thin dime added to the deficit; of assurances that hundreds of billions of dollars of savings are just sitting in Medicare, ripe for the plucking; of individual mandates and employer mandates that aren’t in any way, shape or form a tax … all of which addsg up to “reform” that will not cut costs … and … having received back handed mumbling about possibly, maybe, experimenting with some form of tort reform;  these wretched excuses for “public servants” have the unmitigated gold plated rotting mule balls to include a clause in The Tower that penalizes the one damn thing that we all know would actually reduce freakin’, frackin’ health care costs across the country!!! 

[FOOOOOM!]

Come with me for a moment and steep in the unvarnished arrogance and mendacious, self interested sneer that is our donkey-assed legislators. From their perspective it wasn’t enough to shrug their shoulders and wave their hands about tort reform, constrained by the fact that the Trial Lawyers of America have been top five givers to Democrats since 2000. Oh, hell and brimstone and flaming lava, no. Now they give such an iota mote about process, representation, the will of the people and what is right and good that they are, perfectly willing, to proclaim their own obeisance to a special interest group so clearly and without equivocation that anyone who would not see the grimy hands of the ATLA massaging Pelosi’s bony ass while pleasuring Hoyer with a hand job need to seek what’s left of our market driven health care and get a brain scan.

Is there any other way than to see this as a ginormous FU to any and all? Anyone? Bueller?

Keep in mind that as politically calculating  as the algae infested stomach parasites have been throughout this process and in conjunction with all that they saw in shouting and fist waving this past August, they made a decision that including this one clause offers them no danger of political back fire. Seriously, transcendent arrogance of this magnitude hasn’t been seen on the public stage since Jimmy Swaggart flipped the proverbial bird and screeched that God told him to tell everyone to piss off or some such.

[pause to breathe … BREATHE …]

It’s way past time for conservatives to stop being civil and continue to yell like their hair is on fire (mine is, after all.) It’s not about the bill anymore or Cap and Tax or apologies or porkulus or anything having to do with legislation. This is sharply and concisely, about a group of people who not only don’t give a flaming gerbil’s ass about what you want  but also are happy to laugh in your face and declare that common sense and fiscal responsibility are less important than drinks at a fine DC restaurant with lawyers in thousand dollar suits.

And that, my friends is completely unacceptable. OUTLAW!

h/t sdferr