Dead bills in Carson City

As the Nevada Legislature nears the end of its session -- as voters and taxpayers wait in dread for small cabals of legislators to emerge from their moldy crypts waving hundreds of millions of dollars in economically crippling tax hikes during a recession -- various procedural deadlines speed by, allowing numerous pending pieces of legislation to "die on the vine."

Some, though their quiet assassination by the special interests was predictable, could truly have made things easier for struggling Nevadans. To most of these failed proposals, however, we can safely say "Good riddance."

An example of the former -- a good proposal doomed by its very common sense -- was AB439, which would have "allowed" health insurers to offer Nevadans more affordable, "just the basics" coverage. Don't Democrats endlessly complain that millions of Americans supposedly "have no health coverage"?

Many choose not to buy health insurance because it's so costly. But given a chance to allow Nevadans with lower incomes or lower medical risks -- or their struggling employers -- to purchase less expensive policies, without the bell-and-whistle, politically correct add-ons now mandated by state law, majority Democrats quietly snuffed out AB439 last week.

The bill would have authorized insurance companies to offer an alternative plan covering only the basics: medical, surgical and hospital care, prescription drugs and emergency transportation.

Also dying last week for lack of legislative follow-through were a plan to roll back a voter-approved ban on smoking in many public places -- sought by Nevada bars, restaurants and casinos but opposed by "public health" advocates -- and AB495, a measure designed to boost lawyer income via an end-run around voter-approved caps on medical malpractice "pain and suffering" awards.

In a 2006 initiative, voters prohibited smoking in restaurants and bars that serve food, in slot machine sections of grocery and convenience stores, and at video arcades, shopping malls, schools and day care centers. Smoking is still allowed on gambling floors of casinos.

The law cost plenty of food service jobs, and hurt the tavern business generally. But the so-called Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, no matter how ill-considered, was approved by a vote of the people, and the Legislature was wise not to tamper casually with such a mandate.

Those who seek to revisit the issue should put a revision or repeal back on the ballot, and then explain to voters why the change is needed.

AB495, the measure easing malpractice award caps, had been in Senate Judiciary since its approval in the Assembly on April 20. Supposedly in response to the hepatitis C outbreak that led to the largest patient notification in U.S. history, AB495 was promoted on the premise that such malpractice victims will be left without adequate compensation under the voter-improved caps.

But awards to compensate for actual costs are still without limits. It's the "pain and suffering" awards that once allowed trial attorneys to ask juries to play Santa Claus, awarding damages way above actual costs, of which the lawyers themselves receive a sizable chunk.

Voters decided to limit those sky-high handouts, in an attempt to curb skyrocketing medical malpractice insurance rates that were causing good physicians to limit their practices or even contemplate leaving Nevada.

The caps have started to work. The insurance rates are coming down. Again, lawmakers were wise not to meddle with the expressed will of the people.

If the lawyers want the issue revisited, let them go back to the voters at the ballot box -- with a straightforward initiative this time, not one as loaded with Trojan horse trapdoors as their previous efforts.