Remember President Obama’s talk about pilot programs to test medical malpractice reform as a way to control health care costs?  Well, it’s looking more and more like it was all done with a wink and a nod to the trial bar.

The Washington Times editorial “Chloroform for tort reform” exposes the truth:

With several restrictive qualifications and entirely at the discretion of the secretary of Health and Human Services, the provision, indeed, promises “an incentive payment” for states to try lawsuit reform. Then comes the kicker, though: The bill allows such incentive payments only if “the law does not limit attorneys’ fees or impose caps on damages.”

This provision is a poison pill. Fee limits or damage caps are the two most popular lawsuit reforms in states across the country, and they are demonstrably effective at cutting malpractice-insurance rates and attracting more doctors to the states that embrace them. To pretend to encourage tort reform while punishing states that actually implement reforms is akin to encouraging a diet while assessing fines for losing weight. It’s dishonest, and it ought to be a deal killer.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is behind the ploy that suggests a cynicism beyond the pale.  While it’s heartening that the Congressional majority believes that publicly opposing legal reform is hazardous to one’s political health it’s equally distressing that they may just get away with their disingenuous plan to kill it with a poison pill.

It’s time to step up, speak out and shine a spotlight on this sham.