WASHINGTON - July 20 - The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights today said Vice President Dick Cheney is lying to the American public by claiming that capping what juries can give to innocent victims of medical malpractice will lower health insurance premiums.

"America spends more on dog and cat food each year than all medical malpractice payouts combined," said FTCR president Jamie Court, author of Corporateering: How Corporate Power Steals Your Personal Freedom And What You Can Do About It (Tarcher/Penguin) "Malpractice costs are a fraction of 1 percent of all health-care costs. By contrast, prescription drugs are 16 percent of health costs. If Mr. Cheney and the Bush Administration wanted to lower health care costs, they would have permitted the government to bulk purchase prescription drugs for Medicare recipients. Limiting what innocent victims collect from wrongdoers cannot have an impact on health care premiums. Only curbing the greed of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries can make a real difference, but those industries are among biggest campaign donors on the hill."

FTCR has dedicated a resource page to correcting myths about the medical malpractice crisis that can be viewed at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/healthcare/medmal.php

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