Palin Defeats Obama – Part 2

Just a few short weeks ago former Alaska governor Sarah Palin snatched the health care debate from President Obama with a posting on Twitter.  She warned Americans of potential government run death panels, where end of life decisions would not be in the hands of private citizens, but rather big government bureaucracy.  And on this issue, America ignored Obama and embraced Palin, and the arc of the national healthcare debate was irrevocably changed at great political expense to Obama and the Democrats.

Since that time Obama has repeatedly complained of falsehoods dominating the health care debate, a passive swipe at Palin’s death panel warnings.  He continued his media blitz, seemingly convinced his generalized comments would alleviate the majority of specific American concerns on the subject. 

President Obama was wrong.  Polling continues to show Americans unconvinced of Obamacare – and increasingly unconviced of Obama and his party.  Democrats now face serious election challenges in a number of governor and Congressional races in 2009 and 2010.

Perhaps sensing their collective weakness, Sarah Palin has struck again with a second aggressive Twitter post, declaring that no truthful debate on healthcare can occur without demands for long-needed tort reform.  That if the president and his Democrats are serious about curbing the cost of health care, then the costs of an overly litigious society and the resulting impacts upon health care must be part of the conversation, a requirement Obama and his Democrats have up to this point, steadfastly refused. 

When Texas enacted healthcare lawsuit caps, it found an overall reduction in related healthcare costs of 41 percent.  Texas also saw a corresponding increase of doctors wanting to come to Texas to practice medicine of over 50% – a clear win-win for the citizens of Texas.  And yet despite this clear connection between tort reform and reduction in healthcare costs, Obama and his Democrats have yet to make tort reform a part of the national discussion.  Perhaps the fact that the top law firms in America regularly contribute over 90% of their political donations to Democrats vs Republicans has something to do with this seeming allegiance Democrats have for trial lawyers.  Obama himself held a sizeable fundraiser with the national trial lawyers’ political lobby, and Vice President Joe Biden has a 100% legislative voting record against any and all proposed tort reform that has been introduced over the years.

And so Palin’s latest demand that tort reform finally be made an essential part of the debate on healthcare reform is not only attack on Obamacare, but an attack against one of the most ingrained and influential components of the Democrat Party Machine – the vastly powerful and influential trial lawyer lobby.  As the president vacations in Martha’s Vineyard, Sarah Palin reminds Americans of their deeply embedded mistrust of the money-grubbing lawsuit happy lawyer, perhaps the only profession that is as despised as that of politics.

And once again, while Obama speaks for liberals and their special interests, Sarah Palin speaks for the common American who grows increasingly weary under the yoke of an oppressive, costly, and intrusive government.