Approving Tort Reform

After reading Texas Adapts the Tort Reform Law, I discovered a few interesting facts about what was actually passed. On May 30, 2011 Governor Rick Perry signed HB 274 to create a “loser pays” tort system that applies to civil suits that are seeking between $10,000 and $100,000 in damages. The bill seeks to put everyone on an equal plane. It proposes that deposition costs be recoverable and an offer of settlement stipulation. If a defendant files a declaration to settle and the plaintiff rejects, the defendant can then the costs incurred since the earliest settlement offer was rejected. Before it went into effect, the plaintiff was allowed to collect the costs if he/she won, but did not allow the same for the defendant. Essentially, this doesn't mean Governor Perry wants to screw anyone out of fairness. In fact, the way it is set up, it will provide more equality to our court system.

It also provides a reduction in frivolous law suits. Here in this day and age there are a number of ridiculous law suits and Texas apparently does not wish to be included among those other states where anything goes. Laura Rude-Barbato along with Athena Hohenberg sued Ferrero, the makers of Nutella in a civil law suit. The initial question in everyone’s mind is what happened to them? Were there peanuts in the product? Was there salmonella? Was there a recall; no, not at all. One of the mothers “discovered” the very visibly chocolate based product was not healthy. The parties involved claimed the advertisements were misleading and they were under the misconception that the product was healthy. Common sense would tell most consumers that by law the nutritional information must be clearly listed on the package, and it was. Mom apparently didn’t read the label. Why should that be the company's fault that she failed to turn the bottle to the side before putting it into her shopping cart, and subsequently on to her child’s toast in the morning?  California is known for being a state where nearly anybody can sue anybody for almost anything. Along with the legislators who voted for this tort law reform last year (96-49), I live in the hopes that Texas never follows their example. I am glad that they have reformed this law to prevent frivolous law suits from going to court. It enables the court system to be more accessible since it is no longer bogged down with meritless cases. Hence, that enables the system to run more efficiently and in the long run less costly to tax payers across the board. 

Free Services

The costs of Medicaid are skyrocketing at levels that should be alarming to every Texan over the age of 18.  It is estimated to be expanding over $27 billion in Texas alone, according to Thomas Suehs, executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. According to him, Medicaid accounts for almost one third of Texas’ state spending, equaling $862 dollars per Texas resident. If you were dining at a restaurant and the waiter brings you the tab for the nearest ten tables around you, would you be ok with that? If you do not want to be caught picking up the tab for their medical bills, It is time to take action.  With rising costs and changes in population these figures will average $3500 per Texas Resident by the year 2023 according to the John C. Goodman of the National Center for Policy Analysis.

On a daily basis I hear families calling to ask if one of the doctors that I work for accepts Medicaid under one of the many faces and aliases that it has.  “Do you accept Medicaid Traditional, Medicaid Superior, Medicaid Star, Medicaid Amerigroup, Medicaid Sendero, Chip, Chip Star, Chip Star plus?”... The list goes on and on.   Or the alternative call is one of a family asking for free healthcare stating they do not qualify for Medicaid but they were told if they just ask to get free healthcare, they could get it. It’s awkward to have to tell someone no, you can’t have free services simply by asking for them. You wouldn’t go to an apartment complex and ask to live there without paying rent, so why are we asking physicians to provide services without charging them for it?  Fortunately, most physicians do not go to twelve years of schooling in order to provide their services free of charge. If that were the case it would take months before you would be able to get an appointment.

Real change needs to be made to put a stop to the almost free care the government is requiring doctors to provide. First, providing free healthcare should not take up one third of any state’s budget. Second, who is going to provide healthcare for all these uninsured people? It’s a known fact that Medicaid imbursement rates are even lower what an insurance company will pay. All of the physicians that I work for in the Round Rock area have closed their practice to new adult Medicaid patients. There’s only so many patients that you can see before those kinds of deficits in revenue affect your business.

The question is how does reform and change start? How can we impact this at the average citizen level. Voting, our only voice. We as citizens need to become more involved and actually deny the chances of increasing state budgets for Medicaid and other free health programs.  

Help Wanted

As Marina Rodriguez discussed in her commentary, Help in Mexico, help is needed indeed. The United States and Mexico have had their issues over the past centuries. As noted in our textbook, nobody knows that more than the state of Texas originally named Tejas y Coahuila.

Here in the past few decades there have been a number of issues between Texas and Mexico, most notably immigration.  How does this tie into the Mexican cartels?  That is quite simple and can be summed up by two words: supply and demand. Mexico picked up on the vacation resort idea and ran with it. Cozumel, Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, Acapulco, Mexico City have all realized the amounts of money that can be made from American tourists and will sell anything that isn’t nailed down. You want an all inclusive package, done. You want a cruise, sure no problem. In fact, we’ll create a cruise that stops in several tourist towns so that you can spend your dollars here. The crime rates aren’t skyrocketing in those towns. As Antonio Garza, the former US ambassador to Mexico notes, the violence is typically trafficker-on-trafficker. It’s the areas that don’t have tourism to rely on and lack economic growth that are in peril, like Ciudad Juarez near El Paso.  (Mexican Drug Trafficking) As mentioned in this article int the NY Times, the bloodshed is mostly between the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas. 

Another perspective to bring light to the issues is that the US requires an extensive process to legally immigrate into this country. A great percent of those that immigrate illegally do so because they simply cannot afford to embark on the extensively time consuming and financially draining if not completely unaffordable process. The time, energy and money required are just not realistic. Lack of jobs in their area cause them to move into areas like Texas, Arizona, Nevada and California where they can find jobs until they are booted and sent back to Mexico. In the meantime, those drug cartels have found a very lucrative way to sustain their living. As long as the demand for drugs is high in the United States, the supply will continue its steady stream. The violence and killings, reported as high as 47,515 drug related deaths since 2006, are a direct result of the cartels ridding themselves of completion and livelihood. In the end, it all boils down to the need for jobs and economic growth. The problem involves both countries and US and Mexican government need to both be part of the solution. 

Your destination is on your right...Recalculating...

As a new resident to the city of Austin, I would like to point out something that has been plaguing me for quite some time. For some strange reason several of our major streets seem to have a multitude of names for the same street. Take for example, here in Round Rock, University Blvd is also known as Chandler Rd., also known as RR 1431 and as Whitestone. FM 1825 is also known as Pecan Street in Pflugerville. Co Rd 119 is also known as 79, also known as Palm Valley, also known as FM 1660 which turns into Co Rd 175 and then becomes Sam Bass Rd.  How is this helping our tourist economy with this kind of mess? What’s even more inconvenient is the fact that this city has decided to use toll roads in lieu of building a proper loop. I’ve never lived in a city this large that doesn’t have a proper loop that completely covers the circumference of its borders.

I believe with a loop circling the city of Austin should be constructed with a portion of the funds generated from the Texas Title and Registration or the Texas Lotto. Even with the Texas Lotto, 63% goes to the winner as the cash prize, 25% goes to the Foundation School Fund, 5% goes to the Retailer Commision, 5% goes to the lotto administration, and 2% goes to State Programs.  A larger percentage could be taken from the retailer commission to go toward the roads that allows said consumer to arrive at his store to enable that shopper to purchase goods from his business.

First, this would create jobs required to build the actual highway. Second, it would alleviate some of the traffic from I-35 and perhaps even decrease some of the accidents that happen so frequently. Third, it would create ease in getting to and around this city so that more dollars are circulating here at home. Many people have resorting to online shopping from everything from clothing to groceries, simply to avoid the hassle of driving to a brick and mortar store to purchase goods, find parking, pay for said parking all the while spending upward of $3.75 a gallon to do so. It would be worth it for broach this topic and develop plans to unify our streets and neighborhoods and keep our dollars spent here at home here in Texas.  

Liberty....or Death??

In the article Happy Texas Independence Day! by Jonathon McClellan, a proud honorary Texan and a conservative activist residing in Austin who has worked on political campaigns as well as local state officials. He admits he is biased toward those he has worked for and it shows as evidence in this article; a blatant advertisement for the campaign for Ted Cruz for Senator. The intended audience is clearly for his fellow Texas Republicans.

As referenced in our textbook, the two most important ideologies to the Texan Creed are individualism and liberty. And Ted Cruz is basing his campaign on the latter of the two, liberty. The slogan for his campaign is “Stand for Liberty with a Strong Conservative Fighter”.  The article begins with a short recap of the events of March 1836 when 52 men with modest possessions and little organization gathered at Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas to officially create their own nation.

He goes on to paint a picture describing the men with Lt. Col. William Barrett Travis and the men in the Alamo who were battling against the Mexican Army and General Antonio Lopez De Santa Anna, who reportedly campaigned on a platform of change and liberty but didn’t delivery on those promises. He draws close similarities between his own ideals on liberty and that of Lt. Col. Travis by including quotes from the Victory or Death letter, “I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character to come to our aid, with all dispatch…”

The blog certainly draws at the strings of pride in every Texan. Pride in what our ancestors endured for us. Yet his article shows no supporting evidence as to why he should be our new symbol of liberty. What makes him so important that he should compare himself to William Barrett Travis who died defending Texas? I completely support the idea for Texas pride. However, there is absolutely no facts or even claims as to why we should support him in his race for Senator. In order for this article to be more effective there should be some substantial evidence reflecting why he would be a good candidate for Senator. 

The San Antonio Express editorial, Dems, GOP debate school funds, by Gary Scharrer discusses the debate between the democrats and the GOP over school funding. Since Texas seems to be recovering from the recession it seems logical that state leaders would not continue with more budget cuts.  However, apparently Gov. Perry opposed having a special session to address school funding. Republican leaders would prefer instead use the budget surplus, if there even is one, to be used for unfunded Medicaid expenses and unexpected costs. The author’s intended for his work to be read by fellow Democrats, asking that the GOP seats be changed out. He provides some interesting points and backs them up with valid solutions.

This is where I have to agree with Gary and disagree with the GOP. I fail to understand why so much funding should go to the uninsured. Taking your 5 year old to the doctor every time they have sniffle doesn’t seem justified when school programs are being slashed and more teachers are cut every year, so that those that were paying for their own healthcare now cannot. Hence, you’ve thus dug the hole deeper and created even more families that will be applying for your free Medicaid.  Seems counter-intuitive to spend those dollars on Medicaid.

State legislature cut school funding for public schools by $2 billion dollars and its expected that another $2 billion will be cut again next year. Rep. Sylvester Turner (D) doesn’t understand why those funds cant be restored if the economy is improving and neither can I.  All in all public education will be down $6 billion by the start of the next session. These cuts seem unlikely to change unless the powers that be are no longer in power.  According to Jim Pitts (R) from Waxahachie doesn’t foresee his fellow GOP politicians holding a special session to cease to stop more budget cuts.  In the end there’s got to be another way. Something must be done before there is no solution. Either a special session must be held to re-distribute budge surplusses, qualifications for Medicaid recipients need to be evaluated or a change out the people who hold those seats in the Capitol. 

Occupy Austin's eviction from City Hall was timely

It was Saturday afternoon when we were driving through downtown Austin. As a new resident I always like to see park and take a walk through just so I can say I’ve been there and feel more like a local. We saw the tents and people sleeping on the sidewalk and I asked if they were in line to buy Van Halen tickets perhaps. My fiancée advised me this was actually the Occupy Austin aka Occupy Wall Street. To me it just seemed as if that’s about all they were doing… occupying the street.

I came home to google more information so I could find out just what was the point for Occupy Austin. According to this article, http://www.statesman.com/opinion/occupy-austins-eviction-from-city-hall-was-timely-2155182.html found on the website for the Austin American Statesman, the protesters were removed from City Hall on 2/3/12. The article explains that the Occupy Wall Street movement began in New York in September 2011. Apparently the entire point of it all was to put a spot light on income inequality. The protesters were supposed to represent the 99% of Americans that are not rich. They also said that they were being denied their ability to voice their opinions through free speech.

However, they are indeed free to speak their mind without sleeping on the south plaza’s steps every night for weeks at a time. Yes, it makes sense that homelessness is an important issue that needs to be addressed. However, it cost the city an additional $800,000 for police patrol and sanitation. Not to mention the amount of money nearby businesses lost from patrons avoiding the area because of the protesting. The most important issue in the article is not just in regards to Occupy Austin but the bigger picture, voting. 

People who complain about policies usually don’t understand the issues at hand. In this era, we have more access to information than ever before. If there’s something we don’t understand, Google is just a few clicks away. Just like the protestors, instead of just occupying space, we too should become organized, informed and actually turn out for voting day. There will be a city council meeting on February 16, 2012. Will you be there?