Lies, 527s and PACs

Yet again I'm posting a letter to the editor, this time to the New York Times in response to this editorial this editorial; "Check Writing in the Luxury Suites."

But first as a little background I want to explain the basic political differences between PACs (political action committees) and what have been labeled as 527 organizations.

PACs have been around for a long time and are regulated by the FEC. They are limited in how they can collect money. Basically they can only accept $5000 per individual per year, and are bound by the same reporting requirements on donors as political campaigns. By accepting these rules PACs are allowed to actively promote a particular candidate, coordinate their ads with political campaigns and advertise up to Election Day.

527 organizations (named by the code under which they are created) can collect as much money from anybody they want without the same stringent reporting rules that PACs have. However, they are bound by some spending rules: they can’t advocate a particular candidate (although they can attack a candidate), they aren’t allowed to coordinate with campaigns, and they can’t place ads within 60 days of an election.


Now here it is:

Editor,

In your August 31 editorial "Check Writing in the Luxury Suites" you correctly condemn the Swift Boat attack ads coming from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which is indeed a 527 organization. You also say that Kerry has profited from the Democrats pioneer work in the 527 campaign ads.

The only unauthorized ads coming from the left that I have seen have come from MoveOnPAC; which as you might assume from its name, is a campaign finance regulated political action committee. By not being more specific in what 527 organization ads you feel benefited Kerry you inadvertently paint all anti-Bush ads not authorized by the Kerry campaign with the '527 brush.' Whether you agree with them or not, the MoveOnPAC ads just aren't in the same category as the Swift Boat 527 ads.

Sincerely,

Scott M Taylor

Note: There are plenty of 527s including Moveon.org Voter Fund and ACT that produce anti-Bush ads but none of them have proven to be full of lies and distortions like the SBVfT advertisements

Tort Reform

I really don’t want to make a habit of just posting letters to the editor but I've been sending quite a few lately. So:

Editor
In Wednesday's letters to the editor, Steve Klein, MD argues that tort reform has been proven to lower medical costs. Unfortunately this isn't true. California is often used as an example to champion medical tort reform. They passed a cap on non-economic damage back in 1975 and not only did malpractice premiums not decrease, they increased at an average rate much higher than inflation. It wasn't until 1988 when Proposition 103 was passed rolling back insurance rates and making the insurance companies justify their rate increases did the malpractice rates go down.

So, instead of arbitrarily capping damages awarded to injured patients in an effort to keep sky high malpractice premiums down maybe we should be looking at the insurance companies to justify why their rates are so high.

Scott M Taylor

This letter was in response to a letter from a doctor published in the 8/25/04 Seattle P-I. The doctors who are pushing for tort “reform” are really starting to get on my nerves. They say that doctors are leaving certain states and leaving risky specialties because malpractice insurance is too high. I’m sure this is true. However they blame the hideously expensive premiums not on insurance company greed but on trial lawyers the outrageously high malpractice payouts. Of course there is no proven correlation between malpractice payouts and rate hikes. In fact the rate hikes can be related to down turns in the economy. (Of course this is not necessarily a causal relationship.) Insurance companies invest the premium money and of course when their investments tank instead of sucking it up like most people they can just jerk their rates up to compensate.

I did about a few hours worth of research for the letter to the editor mostly focusing on California, which seems to be the darling of the tort reform folks. Most of the papers and documents report the same general facts but the tort reformers hail the 1975 non-economic damages claims as being the cause of California success. However the trial lawyers and consumer advocates say that the 1975 act didn’t work. They say that only in 1988 when Prop 103 was implemented to keep an eye on the insurance companies did malpractice and indeed all medical insurance rates come down.

I think the lawyers and consumer advocates have it right in this case. There are crooked lawyers out there and there are unreasonable lawsuits, but you don’t fix the system by punishing the legitimately injured parties, you fix the system by punishing the people who bring the truly frivolous lawsuits and regulate the insurance companies so they don’t overcharge for insurance just because they can.