Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, the bill before us today is modeled on California's highly successful litigation reforms that have lowered healthcare costs and made healthcare much more accessible to the people of that State. Because the evidence of the effects of those reforms on lowering healthcare costs is so overwhelming, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that, if the same reforms were applied at the Federal level, they would save over $50 billion over a 10-year period. Because the evidence that those reforms increase access to healthcare is so overwhelming, they are supported by a huge variety of public safety and labor unions, community clinics and health centers, and organizations dedicated to disease prevention, all of which have seen the beneficial effects of these reforms in California. So popular are these reforms among the citizens of California that a ballot initiative to raise the damages cap, backed and funded by trial lawyers, was defeated by an over 2-to-1 margin in 2014. This bill's commonsense reforms include a $250,000 cap on inherently unquantifiable noneconomic damages and limits on the contingency fees lawyers can charge. They allow courts to require periodic payments for future damages instead of lump sum awards so bankruptcies in which plaintiffs would receive only pennies on the dollar can be prevented.…”