Guidant suit dismissed
A federal judge in Minnesota denied a request to reconsider his 2007 dismissal of a class action suit against Guidant Corp. (now a Boston Scientific Corp. subsidiary) over an implanted defibrillator recall.
The suit, by a group of third-party insurance payors, sought redress for payments they were forced to make when patients’ defibrillators had to be replaced after their 2005 recall.
Ruling that the motion to reconsider was nothing more than “an attempt to relitigate old issues,” federal Judge Donovan Frank of the U.S. District Court for Minnesota declined to reconsider his 2007 decision to dismiss the lawsuit:
“[T]he Court stands by its May 9, 2007 and November 16, 2007 Orders and, for this reason, denies the named TPP Plaintiffs’ Motion for Reconsideration because it is an attempt to relitigate old issues.”
Just after its acquisition by BSC for $27 billion, Guidant agreed to fork over $240 million to settle claims by patients who were allegedly injured by the defective devices, but never admitted any liability.
Minnesota’s sunshine law shines dimly
If you sell pharmaceuticals in the Land of 10,000 Lakes,* you’re supposed to keep track of how much you pay doctors in consulting fees and other marketing boondoggles, and send that data to a publicly available state database.
But according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, this year’s crop of data from 86 companies covering $13 million in payments is a “sprawling, hard to search and often vague” mess:
“[R]eformers who hoped that payment disclosure would curb inappropriate ties between companies and doctors may be disappointed. The records are sometimes incomplete and inconsistent. Doctors say they are often inaccurate. Enforcement for companies that don’t comply has been nonexistent, even though the law allows a fine of up to $10,000 and revocation of a company’s license to sell drugs in Minnesota.”
Here’s hoping the Massachusetts gift ban isn’t a similarly wasteful — and wasted — effort.
*Actually, it’s more like 12,000.
Maine’s senators get it from both sides
The debate raging inside the Beltway and across the country over healthcare reform has caught Maine’s two senators, Olympia Snow and Susan Collins, in a crossfire of competing interests, the New York Times reports.
Parties with a dog in the race, ranging from the Service Employees International Union to conservative foes of government intervention in health insurance, are besieging the pair, who look to be swing votes when — and if — the various proposals make it to the Senate floor.
Snowe, the lone Republican senator to support a public, single-payer option and a key member of the one of the Senate committees drafting reform legislation, has been lobbied particularly hard (Collins is tepid about the single-payer proposal):
“Liberal groups have enlisted hundreds of Maine residents to write letters to [Snowe], often during house parties they have organized around the state.
‘She’s listening really hard, there’s openness with her and she’s the more powerful player,’ said [Lisa] McSwain, who held one such party. “So I feel like if we target her, Collins will maybe go along for the ride.'”