Here’s one of the lines Bush keeps repeating on the campaign trail in arguing there should be caps on malpractice awards:
Too many people are driving too far to get good health care because these lawsuits are ruining medicine, as far as I’m concerned. You can’t be pro-doctor and pro-patient and pro-personal injury trial lawyer at the same time. (Applause.) You have to make a choice. My opponent made his choice and he put a personal injury trial lawyer on the ticket.
AUDIENCE: Booo!
Okay, Bush frames the issue to get a gratuitous shot it. Boo those bad trial lawyers. But then Bush adds this:
I have made my choice. I’m standing with the doctors of Ohio, I’m standing with the patients of Ohio. We are for medical liability reform.
That’s a pretty picture, isn’t it? On one side you have Kerry/Edwards and the bad trial lawyers, and on the other you have the doctors, patients, and Bush all working for better health care.
But what if the doctors mess up in treating the patients? Do the two still share the same interests? In the real world (as opposed to Bush world) they don’t; that’s why the trial lawyers enter the picture–to represent the patient’s interests in the dispute with the doctor/insurance company’s interests.
But somehow Bush stands with both sides at the same time.
He has that ability, because he is a united, not a divider. Bush has metaphysical powers to united and reconcile opposing ideas, including mathematical equations. 2+2=5. A circle has three sides. Warring parties in a malpractice suit both want the same thing.
Got it now?