Why is it that the Oklahomans is so big on voting for Democrat Governor, but is always so big on voting for Republican President?

How many other states is the same way?

Is it that one specific party works better locally and another specific party works better nationally?

If Brad Henry decides to run for President and overcomes everything to be chosen the last Democratic canaditate, will the Oklahomans finally vote for a Democrat President?

I think the republicans just have not put a reasonable candidate on the ballot since Keating. Not to mention Brad Henry is a likeable guy. He tends to take a common sense approach to the issues.

Gary Richardson took away any chance for Steve Largent to win when he exposed the real Steve Largent to the public. Largent expected the Governor's Mansion to be handed to him on a silver platter.

Istook picked the wrong time to run against Henry. The economy was good (still is). The people of Oklahoma took the attitude of " If it ain't broke don't fix it.

It suprises me that the Democrats did not pick him as someone for the presidential ticket. He has clean background, a common sense attitude and is very down to earth.

I did not vote Henry. I do however think he is a great politician. He steers clear of the dirty politics and he makes decisions based on common sense and the facts. Not to mention Henry is a man of the people. He is not a man of the party.

If Obama had picked Henry as his VP, what will the Oklahomans do? Will there be a major shift to vote Democratic at the Presidential election?

Palin is a very down to earth person and McCain chose her as one of the many reasons stated. Funny how Obama didn't do the same by picking Henry.

Obama wanted to shore up his lack of experience both political and personally by picking a longtime democrat in congress. The problem with that is he picked a man who the argument of chance seems shallow. With Hillary he could have picked up more women votes. Probably the dislike of many including Obama for the Clintons was factored into not including her. Hillary has decided to put her support behind him knowing that if she has any chance in the future with the democrats she must. The big problem for her is that if Obama wins she may never get her chance. At least if McCain wins we might see two women run for president in 2012. Now how historic would that be?

It's not just this governor. We have a history of voting Red for president and Blue for governor for decades. I've always wondered this myself. I think it's maybe because Oklahoma Democrats are pretty conservative overall.

I think you are right. Oklahoma Democrats are more in the mode of Harry Truman. Work hard and just give me what I earn. The libs on the other hand believe that government should solve all our problems and personal responsibility be damned.

The biggest reason Henry got elected was the cockfighting bill -- a lot of rural Dems turned out to save cockfighting, and in the process put Henry into power.

Since then, Henry has quietly been a pretty stellar governor. He single handedly flipped the proverbial bird to the big-oil industry and insurance industry, and whatever other industries packed their pork into the tort reform bill when he vetoed it.

He actually (rumor has it) had Aubry McClendon personally come into his office to tear him a new one over that veto as it killed a very powerful provision for oil producers which would have disallowed class action suits when O&G producers failed to pay royalties to mineral rights owners (which would have actually encouraged O&G producers to not pay royalties on purpose because to sue on the non-payment in most cases would not be financially feasible).

I did get to attend his first victory party (as a member of the media) and was really impressed with the folks who counted themselves amongst Henry's supporters. I had a good talk with his kindergarten teacher.

I voted for Largent, but Henry has been a great surprise.

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I just hope he can find a tort bill that's better then what we have. Tort law maybe the number one thing hurting health care. I don't have a problem suing. But I do have a problem suing for anything just in hopes of settling for big payoffs just to get the suit off the table. English Law as practiced in the UK seems to be better for torts. If you lose you pay both parties to the suit and maximums are placed on both legal settlements and lawyer fees. Now listen to the lawyers squeal. lol

Do you have any facts to back that up? Lawsuits are the number one thing hurting healthcare? Really? How do you explain the state's medical malpractice insurer, PLICO having a record profit every year since circa 2003? How do you explain your accusation despite the verifiable fact that malpractice lawsuits and payoffs are drastically down?

You probably can't because you're just parroting the positions espoused by some of our local legislators who are merely giving the tort-reform lobbyists their quid pro quo (legislation in exchange for cash).

Again, this shows your shallow, if nonexistent understanding of the torts system. No plaintiff can really afford to shoulder the cost of a medical malpractice lawsuit and plaintiffs attorneys are few and far between.

All of these lawsuits require expert witnesses.

For one thing, the costs of these witnesses have gone through the roof (around $15,000 per case) because the state's major insurer (PLICO who insures about 96% of the state's physicians) will not insure a physician who testifies against a policy holder.

Do you really think a lawyer is going to take a case where he's going to have to shell out $15,000 just to bet on the slim chance that the insurance company offers a satisfactory settlement? Do you think that a lawyer will spend hundreds to thousands of hours on a case he thinks is frivolous? If so, again, that demonstrates your acute lack of understanding of the torts system.

The "English Rule" (which is what you refer to) is a bar on access to the courts for those who can't afford to finance their own case. The rule operates to only allow the well-heeled into court because the poor will know that they could get socked with a judgment for attorneys fees which they cannot afford.

Juries are strange creatures -- sometimes they get things right and sometimes they get things wrong, even in cases which both sides would probably concede were 'slam-dunks.'

When you make rules raising the bar of access to the courts in medical malpractice cases, think about who you are hurting -- for the most part you are hurting people who have legitimately been harmed by physician negligence. We already have hard caps on punitive damages (tied to the level of culpability of the physician), and overall awards, especially in that area are way, way down.

The fact is, that in Oklahoma, unless you have a pretty damn solid case of medical malpractice, you're not going to be able to find an attorney to take it. That PLICO runs up its bill by turning down good settlement offers doesn't really concern me, especially when they report record profits year after year (but continue to raise their rates).

They are the ones hurting doctors, not the medical malpractice Bar. It never ceases to amaze me how many gullible people actually buy into their self-interested finger-pointing.

(and no, I do not and have never worked for a medical malpractice attorney, nor do I have any plans to practice in that area)

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I put it out as an idea. I know that doctors have a healthy portion of their income as well as all care givers go to malpractice insurance. Now you can argue that's because of the insurance companies and I would agree there is some validity to that. But all the doctors wouldn't be paying such high amounts if they didn't fear the courts.

If you don't like the English Law, what about putting caps on?

Doctors have to pay malpractice insurance because so many doctors commit malpractice. An insurance company will never take a settlement (especially PLICO) which they don't think is reasonable. Insurance companies, for the most part do not take cost of litigation into account when deciding whether to settle or not because they start the year with an amount of money planned for litigation (and they plan to spend it). If there's a settlement, it's generally because they are afraid a jury might award more than the settlement pays.

We already have caps on non-economic and punitive damages. Where do you think we need to have higher caps?

The only category of defendant where there is no cap on damages is this one:

So if you want to actually help out doctors who act intentionally and with malice towards others (i.e., operating while drunk or stoned) or insurers who intentionally and with malice deal in bad faith with insured, then by all means, continue to support these tort reform measures.

Or maybe you should educate yourself on the hard-caps on non-economic damages which we already have in place.

OSCN Found Documentamages for Sake of Example and Punishment of Defendant - Punitive Damages Awards by Jury

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I would edit and add this, but the edit function has been buggy as of late.

The fact is that tort reform being presented as a "conservative" issue is completely disingenuous. There is absolutely nothing conservative about it.

The premise of tort reform is that individuals and companies which injure people should be allowed to be less responsible for their wrongdoings, or at least a lot harder to take to task.

I could see some middle of the road approaches to tort reform, but the conversation as it is happens to be controlled by well-paid lobbyists who could give 2 craps about what's good for the people and who only care about what's good for their clients. Glen Coffee, the author of last year's bill was caught flat-footed in committee when a lobbyist had to step in and explain what was in the Bill because its supposed "author" just didn't know.

If the man who wants the entire state to have to obey the new law doesn't even know what's in it, and doesn't apparently care enough to read it (it was only 80 pages or so), what makes you think it's good for Oklahoma?

I agree with some things which would make things cheaper to litigate -- less formalization of things like service requirements, requiring automatic discovery in lawsuits (like we have in federal court) and things of that nature which would help to reduce the number of hours lawyers spend writing nasty letters to each other and briefs to the court regarding issues which are secondary to the actual case. I'd like to see a stronger Oklahoma "Rule 11" (the rule which imposes sanctions upon attorneys who file frivolous motions/cases, or who displease the court.

There are actually many places where reasonable minds could agree that reform would be a good thing.

Protections for industries which have ponied up to certain lobbyists, however, is not a direction Oklahomans, and especially conservatives who as a rule think we should be responsible for the wrongs we commit can or should support.

Be aware that those running on a tort-reform ticket have been bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists, and if elected, they will serve their donors' interest and not their constituents'.

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I would contend that if a doctor intentionally harms a patient that he not only is sued but kicked out of the profession and go to jail. Same goes with drunk and stoned. However, medicine is an art at best and doctors are human. Some mistakes are made even in the best of circumstances. Should a lawyer capitalize on that to make a lottery win for both himself and his client? Let's put a high cap on what lawyers make. umm...something like 1%. And then give the deserving the rest. By the way, do lawyers ever get sued for malpactice? Just asking.

Regarding a cap on what lawyers can make off of a case, there already is one, it's 50%, although most charge significantly below that. As a conservative, I thought you'd be supportive of the freedom of a client to make a contract with a lawyer to represent them in a case? If the client doesn't like the fee the lawyer is asking for, there's certainly no shortage of lawyers to choose from.

Keep in mind that when a lawyer takes a case on contingency, the lawyer, not the client is going to finance the case. That means that the lawyer will be out tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money on one of these malpractice cases, and even though the lawyer thinks the case is a lead-pipe cinch, in Oklahoma County, juries are incredibly tough on medical malpractice cases, so even good cases lose. In such case, the lawyer gets zip and has to pay the bills associated with the case anyhow. It is a huge gamble for him, so lawyers don't take cases they think will lose.

Practicing medical malpractice law is probably no way to get rich. You can and should be able to make a living at it. If lawyers can't make a living practicing a certain sort of law, there will be no one around to represent the people injured by negligent doctors.

As for attorney malpractice, yes, attorneys as well as all professionals are subject to malpractice and some, depending on specializations pay exorbitant insurance premiums. For example, if I wanted to practice securities law, my premium would ring up at ~$50,000 per year.

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Do you have any figures for the number of lawyers sued compared to doctors?

Lawyers' fees of 50% seems a bit much for an injured person to give up.

Have the lawyers stopped coming to Oklahoma to try cases now? Since some of the trial lawyers here were encouraging them in the past.

Nope, although I'm pretty sure docs are sued more frequently. Couldn't tell you why that is except that attorneys probably have a little more discretion as to how to handle a case and that legal malpractice may be a bit harder to prove.

So you'd prefer to step into that contract, freely made between two people and force them to bargain for less? How about you do the same thing with the cost of medicine and drugs? Not interested in that? I thought not.

That's still not in the least responsive to any point I made re: why the fee is what it is. The attorney has to be able to pay for his losing cases as well as his own living expenses. Make it impossible to make a living and no one will be around to represent injured people.

That is something taken straight out of the tort reform propaganda. I believe some Texas lawyer did say something to that effect, but that's because Texas imposed limitations on recovery which made it difficult, if not impossible for practitioners to make a living.

Also, the statement was made quite awhile ago, sometime back in the 90's as I recall. Things have changed a lot since then. The fact that the insurance lobbyists still use that as part of their propaganda gets a bit more comical every year.

The fact is that in Oklahoma, doctors have a much higher per capita income than lawyers, and that every single year, the number of both doctors and lawyers increases in the state of Oklahoma. For every doctor who 'closes his doors' due to malpractice costs, at least another has appeared. This manufactured crisis is nothing more than a ruse by for-profit companies to increase their profit margins at the expense of the people they injure.

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I wish teachers had the same advantages of setting fees so they could make a living.

And by the way, I do look for the cheaper drugs. And if I get medical service that I think is too much I go find another doctor next time. Unless of course they have my heart open...lol

At the University level, they have a lot more leeway. They can also publish their work and make pretty damned good money doing so. At the lower levels, teachers are often seen as interchangeable, and besides that, the state doesn't have the resources to pay them what they're worth due to the hundreds of millions in tax-cuts the legislature has been making.

We made a choice -- tax cuts instead of paying teachers a higher wage. I guess that's where our priorities are in this state.

Good for you, but you can't always do that as many name-brand drugs cost a lot of money and are the only option available (and I have no problem with that and don't think that medical care or receiving certain cutting-edge drugs, or even Asprin) is a right, nor do I think medical care is a right.

Really though, when it comes to your medical care, do you really want to shop for the best health care provider based upon who is charging the least? Is that even safe?

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I don't think medical doctors have all the answers. My sis and father-in-law are both respected doctors. I think the world of them. Sis is a little too liberal for me but that's another story. I have for the last few years after being checked for clogging deposits in my arteries and doctors wanting to fill me with statin drugs, embarked on diet including certain over the counter nutrients to supplement. I feel much better and hope I can live to see McCain elected...just couldn't resist.

I found this blog regarding the issue of Tort Reform. It is of course, quite one-sided, but the facts are given a lot more context and are a lot more intellecutally honest than anything you'll find a PLICO shill telling you.