First, from Chris Corfman, who sent along three e-mails:

There are three candidates for King County Executive, not two. This begs the question: Do you have a clue what your rambling about? Please show you are informed and have intelligence--include all 3 candidates.

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Good blogging; but short on history. Remember the vote a few years back on whether or not the Port of Seattle should build a third runway at SeaTac? The voters said, No Third Runway. Ron Sims was on the council
then that IGNORED THE VOTE, and began construction on the 3rd runway anyway. (I think he was even the leader of the council then.) But compared to Irons, he's a good guy. I'm sure you bloggers could find many juicy examples.

We need a King County Executive who will use the economy to serve the people, and not the other way around. Ron Sims does, as long as he's not under too much corporate pressure. Irons sucks the corporate rod
with diligence. Lange might be a better choice.

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Since the elections board is an issue in the 2005 King County Executive race, shouldn't we be talking about Instant Runoff voting? It's legal, fair, and efficient; but the two major parties are afraid of it because it would diminish the two party power hold on politics. And so we now have a primary system that most people really hate--many even refusing to vote because of it.

We need a solid, for the long term, voting system, and not the "fix" we now have.

Gentry Lange of the Green party, who is running for King County Executive, would, I believe, support Instant Runoff voting. The other two candidates would not because of their chicken politics.

And now, here's Al Dorow, who wades into the medical malpractice quagmire::

I-330 simply gives a theoretical preferential treatment to doctors and insurance companies. This is an accepted business practice. Cities and governments provide incentives in the form of preferential treatment by reducing taxes, expenses of doing business or making special concessions that is not available to others. Doctors here, and I would presume the insurance companies, want the same thing. The question is what does the public get for this? Not much in my view. [Insurance] Commissioner Kreider’s report along with the report from Public Citizen shows that this initiative isn’t going to drop rates.

Public Citizen is quite direct in indicating I-330 will not drop rates. To me it looks that I-330 isn’t going to make coverage’s for the ObGyn affordable and more available. By giving these concessions. the public is not going to get better access to coverage.

The real issue is one where a few doctors are having big dollar losses that are being paid by others. The Public Citizen reports talks about doctors with multiple losses who should not be part of the group. Without actions that remove the worst offending doctors the experience isn’t going to improve. The Public citizen report documents the large payments made on behalf of a small number of doctors. The first order should be policing and this appears to be what I-336 will do.

The second order is to fully study the issue. Remember the legislature could not come to agreement on this subject after extensive work. The issues are complex and I-330 seems to be a call of frustration, self-centered and puts a finger in the eye of the legal field. I-330 isn’t gong to solve the issues for the doctors. It does draw attention.

Commissioner Kreider’s office is the proper areas to further detail these issues. I-336 if it passes should provide tacit and direct support to the commissioner’s office. Here is what the commissioner said “However, we still lack the authority to require specific information that could shine a light on the real trouble areas in the medical malpractice market,” he added. “Now is the time to develop clear and consistent requirements for reporting claim and settlement information. It’s time to move from policy decisions based on anecdotes to decisions based on data that can really solve problems. I intend to push for legislation again in 2006 that would give my office the authority we need to better assess the health of the medical malpractice market.”

The third order is to increase the insurance carrier numbers. Until Washington deals with problem doctors, why would more insurance carriers come into the state? Currently the major writers are Physicians Insurance and The Doctors Company. Without more carriers in the state there wouldn’t be the competition and the resultant upgrading of carriers.

Washington’s own domiciled carrier, Physician’s Insurance is a doctor-owned company with a board controlled by doctors and with a B++ rating and a negative outlook from Bests, the benchmark rating service. Having strongly rated carriers in Washington is part of the solution.

It is interesting that on the I-330 website that under supporting businesses Mutual of Enumclaw is listed but not Physicians Insurance. There must be something here I don’t understand. There must be some irony here. Physicians Insurance is a doctors company and I-330 is a project of Doctors for Sensible Lawsuit Reform.

I-330 doesn’t appear to be solving the problem of affordability and availability. I-336 does begin to address the issues. I-330 does bring a toehold to tort reform in general and perhaps there is a reason for some to vote yes. Since I-330 is proposed as a doctor issue I am treating it as such. I feel the best vote is no on I-330 and yes on I-336.