Slowly but surely our rights are being trampled under the pressure of the War on Terror, the needs of big business and the agenda of political parties about to do battle in a presidential campaign.  The time has come for citizens to pull back the reins on special interest groups and the political viewpoints funded by them.   We need to start shining a bright light wherever and whenever rights are being threatened - or we will surely lose them, one at a time until we no longer have even the right to fight for them.

One major right currently in danger, is the right of victims to take the responsible party to court and plead for damages.  Insurance Companies are attempting to place caps (based on equations that belittle homemakers, infants, children and seniors) on a victim's ability to seek fair and just Medical Malpractice recovery.  Insurance companies are literally trying to bar the courtroom doors -- keeping the victims of medical error out of the courtroom and without recourse in pursuing the financial reimbursement they deserve and need to adjust to a life handicapped by a doctor's error.

You've read the headlines - you've heard the stories:

• Medical instruments left inside a patients stomach.
• Broken bones set wrong that leave a pro-bound college athlete, without a career.
• Faces scarred for life.
• Children killed by misdiagnosis.
• Women made sterile by botched surgeries.
• Wrong limbs or organs removed.
• Wrong medications kill people!

Yes, these are gruesome tales - but every town knows someone whose life was forever changed by medical error.  In some cases, lives were lost.  Incomes and jobs disappear - families struggle to pay medical expenses - some lose their homes - and that's the tip of the iceberg.  Yet Insurance Companies are kicking them out of the legal system!
      

• Citizens who are cheated, are allowed to go to court for damages.       
• Citizens who are beaten, are allowed to go to court for damages.       
• Citizens whose good names are libeled, are allowed recourse in the courts.       
• But citizens who are maimed or killed by a doctor?  If cap limits are approved, they may never be able to step into a courtroom. 
  
  

We must be vigilant!  Every citizen is guaranteed certain rights by law!  When we give up one group's rights - we all suffer the loss.  Even before 9/11 we saw the wheedling away of several rights we thought guaranteed to us.  But since the War on Terror began, constitutional rights have been spiraling away in nebulous clouds of veiled threats, some real - some imagined. 

But at some point we must all say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.  Say no to those who would take one more right away from us!  Say no to the Insurance companies, who like other special interest groups, put their corporate desires before the rights of our citizens. 

Join the Citizens for Insurance Industry Reform.  Many industries operate under good and fairly determined guidelines that still allow them to prosper while offering the public a fair price for goods or services.  Insurance Industry reform is the only practice that has actually resulted in holding the line on Malpractice Premiums - and it needs to be implemented in Pennsylvania. Send a Message to your Legislator Now!