Over the last several decades, a relentless and more or less successful campaign has been waged by a collection of interests identifiable as the "tort reform" movement, aimed at closing the courthouse door to civil litigants as much as possible. This group strives to make it as difficult as possible for victims of corporate or other misconduct to sue and hold accountable in court those who harm them. Even more detrimentally, this same "tort reform" group has succeeded in shaping and leading important national narratives about the law and lawyers. Now, more than ever before in recent history, lawyers, lawsuits, and an overly litigious society are blamed for everything from the rising costs of health care to the state of the economy.

This blog is being launched to right this imbalance, and to affirmatively engage the "tort reform" movement's ideas in a popular medium that is accessible to lawyers and non-lawyers alike.

The myths:

Question: Why are medical insurance premiums costs so high?
Answer: Lawyers.

Question: Why can't I get a good doctor in my community?
Answer: Lawyers.

Question: Why isn't the economy in my state improving?
Answer: Lawyers.

Question: Why is American culture disintegrating?
Answers: Lawyers.

Question: Why did my wife leave me?
Answer: Lawyers.

Those of you who may be familiar with me know that I work on a volunteer basis with an oncologist at a Manhattan hospital. I often write about what I witness first-hand--the daily assaults perpetrated by insurers against both insured and uninsured Americans who find themselves sick, vulnerable, and at the mercy of an unforgiving system.

On Daily Kos, researching and writing about the American healthcare crisis always leads to this one question: How can the richest nation on the planet allow 47 million of its own citizens to go without basic healthcare services? Forty years ago, healthcare accounted for about 5 percent of GDP. Today it hovers around 16.5 percent. This is a flagrant example of government policies that are clearly not working and not good for America. Not having access to affordable healthcare is a black-and-white kind of issue. And what I discovered is that there are no "good" answers and an awful lot of bad ones. Or self-serving ones. And there's also just a lot of good old-fashioned lying and spin going on out there.

These issues are important in and of themselves, but are also critical elements in the debate about "tort reform" and the causes of increasingly unaffordable healthcare in America. Right now the national narrative suggests that medical malpractice lawsuits are primarily responsible for skyrocketing medical costs, and the inability to provide all Americans with basic healthcare. In fact, the costs of malpractice premiums amount to about 1 percent of total U.S. healthcare expenditures. I will be taking a critical look at all the explanations for spiraling healthcare costs, and investigate the veracity of the present national narrative.