HEALTH CARE

NOVEMBER BALLOT MEASURES PIT DOCTORS AGAINST LAWYERS

Rivaling Bush vs. Kerry for bitterness, doctors and trial lawyers are squaring off this fall in an unprecedented four-state struggle over limiting malpractice awards. The volatile issue is in voters’ hands and each side is desperate to win, spending millions of dollars to make their cases and portray the other side as greedy.

In all four states – Florida, Nevada, Oregon, and Wyoming – doctors and health insurers pushed to get measures on the November 2 ballot, and trial lawyers are campaigning hard for a “No” vote.

“We have open warfare here with the personal injury lawyers,” said Larry Matheis of the Nevada State Medical Association. “It’s a national test of whether, in trying to solve the devastating medical liability crisis, we have to go directly to the people.” Never before have voters in so many states simultaneously had a chance to weigh in on the debate.

The doctors say caps on awards are needed to rein in soaring insurance rates that otherwise will drive many of them out of high-premium states and high-risk specialties. The lawyers say there should be tighter controls on insurance companies, not on juries who may be a victimized patient’s only hope for justice.

“The insurance industry, the drug industry, the hospital and nursing home industry have far more money than people injured by medical malpractice and their lawyers,” said Carlton Carl of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. “But if there’s a level playing field, I have no doubt Americans will vote to preserve their legal rights.”

– Associated Press

WEST

EXPERTS WARN OF MOUNT ST. HELENS ERUPTION

SEATTLE – A strengthening series of earthquakes at Mount St. Helens prompted seismologists yesterday to warn that the once-devastating volcano may see a small explosion soon.

The U.S. Geological Survey issued a notice of volcanic unrest in response to the swarm of hundreds of earthquakes that began Thursday.

“The key issue is a small explosion without warning. That would be the major event that we’re worried about right now,” said Willie Scott, a geologist with the USGS office in Vancouver. The quakes were tiny at first, but on Saturday and yesterday there were more than 10 temblors of magnitude 2.0 to 2.8, the most in a 24-hour period since the last dome-building eruption in October 1986, Mr. Scott said. In the event of an explosion, Mr. Scott said the concern would be focused on the area within the crater and the flanks of the volcano. It’s possible that a five-mile area primarily north of the volcano could receive flows of mud and rock debris.

– Associated Press

WASHINGTON

KENNEDY SAYS BUSH HAS INCREASED NUCLEAR WAR THREAT

The Bush administration’s failure to shut down Al Qaeda and rebuild Iraq have fueled the insurgency and made America more vulnerable to a nuclear attack by terrorists, Senator Kennedy said yesterday.

In a speech prepared for delivery at George Washington University today, Mr. Kennedy said that by shifting attention from Osama bin Laden to Iraq, Mr. Bush has increased the danger of a “nuclear 9/11.”

“The war in Iraq has made the mushroom cloud more likely, not less likely,” he said in the remarks released last night.

Expanding on earlier suggestions that Iraq is Mr. Bush’s Vietnam, Mr. Kennedy said American soldiers are bogged down in a quagmire with no end in sight.

He said it was a good thing Mr. Bush was not in charge during the Cuban missile crisis, one of the darker periods of his late brother’s John Kennedy’s time as president.

– Associated Press