Health law doesn't substantially address torts

The statement

The health care law includes tort reform.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., in a speech on the House floor

The ruling

Taking aim at Republicans that he said would be making false claims, Rep. Anthony Weiner suggested people try a drinking game while listening to House debate recently on a measure to repeal the health care law.

"There are basically three formations of the argument by the Republicans: First, they start by making stuff up. You kind of have to wonder if any of them actually read the bill: 137 new agencies — not true; new IRS agents — not true; death panels — not true; members aren't covered — not true; no tort reform in it — not true.

"You know, I want to just advise people watching at home playing that now-popular drinking game of you take a shot whenever the Republicans say something that's not true, please assign a designated driver. This is going to be a long afternoon."

Weiner was on fairly solid ground with most of his claims. We've debunked death panels (Pants on Fire); 15,000 new agents for the Internal Revenue Service (Barely True); 53 new government bureaucracies (Barely True); and members of Congress aren't covered by the health care bill (False).

But we stopped short at Weiner's claim that the health care law included tort reform. Did it?

When talking about federal tort reform, the usual ideas are:

• Caps on the amount of money juries can award injured patients.

• To let jurors consider patients' other sources of income when making awards.

• To create "fair share" rules that let jurors assign damages based on how much the doctor or hospital contributed to the injury.

There's nothing like that in the health care law, which passed the House in March.

Still, we got in touch with Weiner's office, and they pointed us to pages 686 and 891 of the final bill. These are the parts of the bill that authorize $50 million in funding for state projects that develop, implement and evaluate "alternatives to current tort litigation for resolving disputes over injuries allegedly caused by health care providers or health care organizations."

Given the size of the health care system, that's a tiny amount of money. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office evaluated whether the state pilot projects would reduce the government's health spending and declined to assign any cost savings to the program. On the other hand, the CBO found that traditional ideas on tort reform could reduce government health spending by $54 billion over 10 years.

Darren McKinney, director of communications for the American Tort Reform Association, said he agreed with Weiner about death panels, but the idea that the law includes tort reform is "demonstrably untrue, and it's not even close."

He also pointed out a clause in the law that specifically says the state programs cannot limit people's right to sue, and that the pilot programs must allow patients to opt out of the alternatives "at any time" to pursue litigation. We confirmed those clauses in the final bill, on page 892.

Then there's a letter from the president of the American Association for Justice, formerly known as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America: "I am very pleased to report that the health care bill is clear of any provisions that would limit an injured patient's rights concerning medical negligence claims."

The projects Weiner points to are such a great distance from any traditional notion of tort reform that they're just not even in the same ballpark. We rate Weiner's statement False.

This ruling has been edited for print. For the full version — and to read other rulings — go to PolitiFact.com.

FPO