One of these days I will get back to the business of serious blogging. But unfortunately, or fortunately, I have just arrived back home only to be leaving again. I am taking off on Sunday, for a real vacation, and will have minimal access to email or the Internet. But until I head off into the big blue Pacific, I need to finish up work, unpack and then pack again, and buy a bathing suit. Isn’t that something, that I don’t own a bathing suit? But it never really gets all that hot here in Seattle, and am I going to go for a swim in Puget Sound? Maybe if I was a polar bear, or having hot flashes.

I tried to buy a bathing suit while I was in Canada, but the village was very small, and there were exactly two stores that sold bathing suits. I have to assume that most of the visitors are large, because small sizes were harder to find than a brain in Dubya’s head. One store, the one in my hotel in fact, had exactly one bathing in a semi-small size. I say semi, because despite the label, the suit could easily house both me and my twin (if I had one).

Anyway, my point. Here is a press release, rather than one of my creative accounts and analyses of the nursing shortage and healthcare horrors. This bill is scary, and yes, take note even if the press release is from the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. I think they have a good point.

Let us hope that this bill dies a quick and painful death in the Senate, and never surfaces again.

House Passes Giveaway to Pharmaceutical and Insurance Industries

H.R. 5 Protects Vioxx, Not Doctors or Patients

(Washington, DC)–Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed a medical malpractice bill (H.R. 5) that does nothing to help doctors with high insurance rates but gives sweeping liability protections to drug companies that knowingly market deadly drugs like Vioxx.

“Today, the Congress showed once again where its true priorities lie – with the big insurance and pharmaceutical companies and their well-heeled CEOs,” said ATLA President Ken Suggs.

H.R. 5 provides sweeping immunity to the pharmaceutical industry and endangers the public health.

Even as the first trial of a Vioxx victim is bringing to light evidence that Merck may have knowingly marketed a dangerous and deadly drug, the drug companies would be given virtual immunity from punitive damages under this bill, and have their total liability for serious injury or wrongful death capped at $250,000.

“The protection this bill gives the prescription drug industry is absolutely ridiculous, especially when these companies have proven they don’t give a hoot about people’s safety,” said Congressman Marion Berry, a Democratic House member and pharmacist who voted against the bill.

“All this legislation does is take responsibility away from the business community and allow dangerous prescription drug companies to make money like gangbusters. It mystifies me that people could vote for a bill that puts their own family in harms way,” he continued.

Senior Republican Congressman Dan Burton (R-Indiana) also refused to vote for the bill because of the liability protections for drugs, including vaccines; he voted “present.”

“The vaccine liability waiver in the medical malpractice legislation will hurt autistic children and their families,” wrote Burton in a Dear Colleague letter sent July 27. “Congress should strike this provision from the medical malpractice legislation. We serve the interests of the American people, not the pharmaceutical industry,” he admonished.

“As Vioxx has shown, these big drug companies will not police themselves – we need the civil justice system to ensure that they are held accountable if they endanger the public’s health,” added Suggs.

H.R. 5 does nothing to stop insurance industry price-gouging.

Study after study has confirmed that while the insurance industry is raising premiums for doctors at a record pace, the amount insurance companies pay out for lawsuits has remained stable. But H.R. 5 has not one word about insurance reform or any provision to require the insurance industry to stop the price-gouging and lower rates.

“The insurance industry is price-gouging doctors and lying to the public all to justify limiting the rights of victims so that the industry can add to its already record-setting bottom line,” said Suggs.

Even supporters of H.R. 5 could not defend the bill – House leaders refused to hold a hearing, limited floor debate, and refused to allow any amendments or substitutes.