Dear Woman Who Sued Vioxx
*Warning: I'm pre-menstrual*
I'm sorry that your husband died, but I'm happy that you were able to put a $253.4 million price tag on what he meant to you. I'm glad that a jury of your peers were able to ascertain exactly how your husband died, seeing as how they have their medical degrees. I'm glad that you've paved the way for people to sue drug companies with abandon, causing them to raise their prices, which will in turn cause insurance companies to raise their premiums so that they are able to turn a profit from their prescription drug coverage. Of course we all know that insurance companies are in business to help the public, not for money. Not only that, but you've really helped out the people who do not have insurance; even though they are unable to afford their medication at $100 a pill, they will most certainly be able to afford it when the drug companies jack up the prices to cover the cost of litigation.
Sarcasm aside, do you deserve money for your husband's lost wages, medical bills, and funeral expenses if, in fact, Vioxx is responsible for his death? Yes. Do you deserve $253 million in mental anguish, loss of companionship, and punitive damages? Absolutely not. I hope you think about the state of insurance in our country as you sit on your pile of cash. I'm one of the lucky ones; I only pay $36.30 a month for health insurance. After I graduated from college and I wasn't officially full-time at my job I paid $400 a month for insurance with a $1000 deductible. One of my friends has a full-time job and pays around $100 a month. My dad is retired and my parents pay about $600 a month. My other friend is unemployed at the moment and pays a lot of money for not-so-great insurance.
Congratulations, Mrs. Ernst. You've won your battle, but you've screwed the rest of us. If only we could all be so lucky as to have a loved one die in a way that we are able to find someone to blame for it and then sue their asses off. You dropped the ball though. You should have fallen in the courtroom. You could have sued the county and the state. But why stop there?! Crash your car into a tree and sue the auto manufacturers for not telling you not to drive your car into a tree. And if you do it while you're drunk, you can sue the alcohol company! Spill some hot coffee on yourself and sue McDonalds! Eat at McDonalds every day and sue them when you get fat! Profit from your husband some more! Cut off his finger and put it in your chilli at Wendy's and sue them! Go see a crappy movie (I recommend Must Love Dogs) and sue the director and the screenwriter for mental anguish!
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go sue Target because I bought a card and the envelope got bent because of the way the guy put it in the bag.
posted by Jenny G @ 8:31 AM
6 Comments:
Agreed.
PS - You can put word verification on your comments now and hopefully eliminate the spammers.
I think I'll do that if it gets to be too big of a problem. I don't want to keep lazy people (like me) from commenting! :-)
litigiousness (sp?) and love of guns. That's how we see you folks as different from us.
Still, we have "socialized medicine" and some "gun control" so we're communists.
Actually, I think the whole lawsuit thing is odd. Really, most western countries have similar court systems for processing civil actions--a good friend of mine has acted in cases for companies like (shudder) Enron and he practices out of Toronto. Yet, for some reason, US courts seem to hand out judgements that are disproportionately large compared to other countries.
As someone who's currently looking at getting a lawyer for help with dealing with an insurance company's low-ball offer (everyone including my doctor has told me it seems crazy low) to me for an accident where someone totalled my car and injured me back in January, I still prefer to live under our system, although I'd likely get a lot bigger payout south of the border.
Drug companies, though, inflate their prices in the U.S. because they can--lawsuits or not. Many European countries have limits legally in place, and yet they can by the same drugs--just cheaper. Here in Canada we allow generics to copy drugs after fewer years, I believe, than the U.S. does--our government has a vested interest, with our subsidized system, in keeping drug costs down.
Apparently negotiations/legal threats are under way now to end the practice of some pharmacies in Canada selling to Americans though.
sorry for the uberlong comment...
tell me how you get on with target, won't you? i had the same problem in hallmark the other day (grrrrrrrr)
;)
You know, this sounds a lot like you drinking tha Hateraide, feel me? That bitch came up, fuck it, you come up. What tha fuck does Vioxx do any way? I always trrip how they advertise all that shit, showing muthafukkas smiling and doing normal shit, then they throw some hell of a name up there like Paxil, or Zormatin, I'm like fuck that bullshit blow some weed.
J: Texas has a cap on punitive damages so she'll never get that much, but what jury would think that is justifiable? My boyfriend used to try to get me to move to Canada because of their healthcare system (among other things). I've heard about the government trying to keep us from getting medication from Canada. I'm lucky I don't have to take a lot of medication, and I also have really good insurance through work. I didn't even have to pay for it until January.
urban: Maybe I'll ask for $1 million in damages which should cover the cost of the gas I used to drive to Target :-). I'll excuse this guy for bending my envelope though, because he was a trainee. His nametag didn't even have his name on it; it just said trainee. We felt bad for him!
bossmack: Vioxx is for arthritis. And I did warn that I have PMS.
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