Constitution? States Rights? Right to Contract? Crazy Ideas H.R. 1215

Those odd Republicans in Washington are at it again, contradicting their core values. This new Medical Malpractice bill (HR 1215) pretends to “reduce healthcare costs” by 1) capping damages in medical malpractice cases, 2) capping attorney fees, and 3) doing it with a federal law.

This is a hot topic, and others here have been writing about it:

• Tort Reform Part One: Ten Key Facts; Ryan R. Bradley | May 2, 2017
• TORT DEFORM: Tort Reform and the Absurdity of Caps on Damages; Scott R. Marshall | Apr 26, 2017
• H.R. 1215 promotes unsafe medicine; Wayne Parsons|Mar 26, 2017
• Trotting Out ‘Tort Reform’ Still the Wrong Response to Health Care Costs, Medical Errors; Rick Shapiro | Mar 8, 2017
• H.R. 1215- an Anti-Justice Bill Limiting Recovery for those Injured in Healthcare Cases, Tatum O’Brien June 27, 2017
• Standing Up to H.R. 1215  John Bair June 28, 2017
• What rights will H. R. 1215 eliminate?  Wayne Parsons June 28, 2017
• Act Today to Stop H.R. 1215 from Destroying Your Rights,  Mark Bello June 28, 2017

Caps on Damages. What bothers me is that the 7th Amendment is very clear. Our forefathers made it a core value of our founding document that citizens would have a jury of other citizens to decide damages, not some elite judge or legislator. Artificial caps on damages undermine the guaranteed right of citizens to a Jury Trial.

These Republican want to ignore that. They profess to support the Constitution above all other law, and yet want to undercut a basic constitutional right.

Capping Attorney fees – but just for the little guy. Ignore that and we move to the idea that they jump in the middle of the client-attorney relationship and want to put a control on what the attorney gets paid. I would bet a couple of them routinely talk about free enterprise, and the right to contract.

But only for the little folks, who can’t afford to pay big money to hire a lawyer. Do they ever interfere with the right of Big Corporations to contract to pay their lawyers whatever they want, including $2,000 per hour billings and up to $12 million for inside counsel? Of course not, corporations are their constituents. This is nothing but a pure political attack!

States’ Rights. Let’s ignore that, and look at the Federal Government taking control and making States follow their rules. Wait a minute, I thought the Republicans supported state’s rights? I thought they wanted local state legislator to make the laws, and leave fighting wars and printing money to the feds. I thought they were against big government?

The reality is that they are penalizing the most injured and robbing them of their rights. They are compounding the injury. Shame on them for their hypocrisy!