Political Quotes

“This is incongruous with the rest of the discussion we have had. It is consistent in that it is an attempt to say that people who have been harmed won't be able to recover, and it makes it harder to recover; and it protects the physicians--and the people--who basically are determined to have been negligent. But, it says that, it is an affirmative defense to any healthcare liability claim--that is not just to a doctor. A healthcare liability claim could be to a nursing home or a medical device company--where the defendant complied with a clinical practice guideline developed by a national or State medical society or medical specialty society that is applicable. They have just argued that for the plaintiff to have an expert witness, that expert witness has to come from the State where the action is brought, or a contiguous State. But, for the defendant, you can have a national practice guideline as an affirmative defense. So when you are in Memphis, you can't get an expert witness from Harvard or the University of Michigan or the University of Southern California because those States aren't contiguous, but the physician could get a medical society's or a national society's perspective and have it be an affirmative offense. It is inconsistent. The whole purpose of this law is inconsistency, to give an advantage to those who have much and who do harm at the expense of those who have been harmed and have less.…”