Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday announced that he is spearheading a package of liability reforms to protect the health care industry and businesses form COVID-19 lawsuits when the economy reopens.
He said protecting businesses from an onslaught of lawsuits whenever someone gets sick was key to pulling the country out of an economic free fall in which more than 33 million Americans lost jobs since the outbreak began.
“If we want even an outside shot at the kind of brisk rehiring that American workers deserve, we have to make sure opportunistic trial lawyers are not lurking on the sidewalk outside every small business in America, waiting to slap them with a lawsuit the instant they turn the lights back on,” Mr. McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said on the Senate floor.
The move put the GOP-led Senate on a collision course with the Democratic-led House, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is preparing a fourth coronavirus spending bill expected to top $2 trillion without liability reforms.
The House Democrats are expected to unveil their new economic rescue bill as soon as Tuesday.
Tort reform has long been a partisan flashpoint, but the ongoing public health and economic emergency inflame the issue.
Mr. McConnell, who previously called liability reform a “red line” for any additional coronavirus spending, said the House appeared to be using the crisis as an excuse to cobble together a liberal wish list of spending items.
“The American people don’t need a far-left transformation,” he said. “They just need a path back to the historically prosperous and optimistic moment they had built for themselves until about 12 weeks ago.”
President Trump has voiced support for giving business protection against COVID-19 lawsuits.
For Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, it is a non-starter.
“We have every reason to protect our workers and our patients in all of this. So we would not be inclined to be supporting any immunity from liability,” she said recently.
