LOSER PAYS RULE

Almost every liberal democracy in the world except ours uses the "Loser Pays Rule" which says that a plaintiff  in a civil lawsuit must pay the winning party’s legal fees if their complaint is judged to be groundless.  For those that hope to rein our uniquely  high rates of litigation a "loser pays rule"  seems like a common sense way to rule to weed out nuisance lawsuits. The loser pays rule would greatly diminish the cost of health care by removing the high cost of law suits against medical providers. Some say the cost of litigation can increase the cost of health care by as much as 20%. . Beside that for fear of lawsuits doctors frequently order unnecessary procedures to play it safe. The new senate bill The Patients Choice Act , sponsored by Republican senator Tom Cobourn of Oklahoma , addresses this problem in a big way. The trouble with passing legislation  to reform our legal system is that Democrats  oppose, and will always oppose any bill to control lawsuits. The obvious reason is that the American Association for Justice, formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers give 96% of their political donations to Democrats, according to www.opensecrets.org/pacs/toppacs. You don't bite the hand that feeds you.