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More than 200 members of the House of Representatives and the Senate claim attorney as their profession. Perhaps, like me, you thought there were actually more lawyers in Congress (or at least a larger number who would admit to it) but suffice it to say, attorneys comprise about a third of the legislative branch of the federal government. |
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For positive ID, attorneys in Congress should be required
to wear barristers' wigs. |
It is difficult to know how many -- if any -- insurance people have a vote in Congress because at the present time there are none who claim insurance person as their profession. Unfortunately, neither faction can be identified at a glance because the wearing of barristers' wigs and other forms of external ID is not required in the USA.
Behind the scenes in Congress there lurks a much larger cadre of un-elected lawyers and paralegals. They research and write nearly all of the legislation proposed by the party for which they toil and, once written, they attempt to explain their creations to the members of directive committees. Subsequently, committee members "suggest" to individual legislators how they should vote on these bills.
No one in Congress (other than the aforementioned unelected lawyers) is forced to do a lot of reading. Therefore, this accepted process enables the passage of appropriations so complex that they may require thousands of pages of legalese to explain them. Unfortunately, it takes little more than a partisan recommendation to "educate" any given senator or congressman about pending legislation.
Case in point: the so-called health care/health insurance reform bill "voted on" in the House of Representatives last year contained nearly 3,000 pages by the time amendments and addenda were affixed to it (ie. after the real politics kicked in and additional back-room deals were cut and additional language was added to the already out-of-control original legalese).
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Months later we are only beginning to find out, along with the members of Congress who "passed" the bill, what is actually in the bill and how it will impact us all of going forward. For once in her political life Nancy Pelosi was being completely truthful when she uttered that now infamous phrase:
“We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” |
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"Don't say we
didn't warn you!" |
Is it any wonder that the public's distrust of legislators who perpetuate this overly-casual, under-educated, partisan system of conducting business on behalf of the taxpayers has been at an all-time high and that approval ratings of the members of Congress had sunk to an all-time low prior to the 2010 elections?
Back to the main topic -- lawyers -- particularly those in Congress.
If you were an attorney representing a client in a medical malpractice lawsuit, who would you rather be suing -- an individual with limited assets or an insurance company with deep pockets? Along the same lines of logic, would you rather be suing an insurance company or the even deeper-pocketed federal government?
How many times have you heard rhetoric demonizing insurance companies and any number of specific insurance company practices since Barack Obama took office?
How many times have you heard rhetoric from the president and/or any prominent Democrat members of Congress demonizing attorneys for manipulating the truly un-reformed health care system to maximize their medical malpractice lawsuit settlements?
How much of the current health care system's wastefulness that has been bemoaned by the Democrats ad nauseam is due directly to the cost of litigation in conjunction with malpractice insurance and the out-sized settlements that they have enabled? On the other hand, how often have the "reformers" even broached the subject of tort reform?
Given the number of insurance industry representatives in Congress versus the number of attorneys in Congress, is it more likely...
a) That Republicans in Congress are in bed with the insurance industry, as the president and Congressional leaders have alleged or...
b) That the Democrats in Congress are in bed with attorneys who not only work to drain the assets of the system but who write the very legislation that enables them to do so?