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John Boehner: "Tort Reform" Hypocrite

By Joe Consumer

Ah, what to do.  You?ve got a catastrophic disaster that?s the fault of a negligent company and someone needs to pay.  And it better not be the taxpayers!  Sound familiar?  But this isn't about what you think.

The medical device industry is currently immune from all liability (forget liability "caps") for killing or hurting people with defective, implantable medical devices.  This includes companies like Medtronic, many of whose defibrillators were made with defective Sprint Fidelis leads that fractured in thousands of patients causing severe electrical shocks.  A great effort to try to fix this in Congress remains stalled.

Or how about the hundreds of state ?tort reform? laws on the books, everything from liability ?caps,? to Michigan?s law that eliminates the right of anyone in the state to sue a drug company for marketing an unsafe or lethal drug.

So when House Minority Leader John Boehner suddenly supports lifting BP?s liability cap because, you know, otherwise the taxpayers would have to pay, why did this same guy sponsor a health care bill that would have protected from liability pharmaceutical companies that kill and maim patients, not to mention dangerous hospitals and nursing homes - and forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab? 

What?s the difference between culpable drug and oil companies that kill people and cause damage?  There shouldn't be.  Welcome, John Boehner, official "tort reform" hypocrite. 

Full post as published by ThePopTort on June 14, 2010 (boomark / email).