Proposition 46 requires voters to make several important decisions about the future of their medical care and how it will be regulated in one comprehensive ballot measure.
A stronger state prescription database, a higher pain and suffering cap for medical malpractice lawsuits and drug and alcohol testing for certain medical professionals – would lead to greater accountability and safety among medical practitioners in the state of California. But this board endorses a vote of “No” on Proposition 46, because the logistical concerns this proposition raises and potential financial impacts far outweigh its intended benefits.
California currently ties for the lowest medical malpractice lawsuit damages cap in the nation: a maximum of $250,000 for pain and suffering, with additional damages possible to cover the economic effects of injuries caused by medical malpractice.
This cap needs to be raised in the coming years. A higher cap would ensure more legal help for patients who have economically suffered from medical malpractice and hold the medical community accountable for its patient care.
At the same time, the unknown costs of raising the pain and suffering cap to $1.1 million overnight provide reason for skepticism. Costs for medical care facilities in California would increase anywhere from “tens of millions of dollars to several hundred million dollars annually,” according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
The proposition also calls for the random drug and alcohol testing of certain physicians. This board does not take issue with state-organized drug and alcohol testing of physicians in the event of medical mistakes or surgical errors, a move that could significantly reduce court costs. With no particular aim and no clear evidence of pervasive drug and alcohol use among doctors, however, randomized tests could prove wasteful due to significant administrative costs.
Proposition 46’s final measure would force providers to check the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, or CURES, a prescription drug distribution database. The move would curb the efforts of many “doctor shoppers,” or those seeking excessive amounts of prescription drugs, and limit the number of harmful pharmaceutical drugs disbursed. It is one this board approves if the state is willing to ensure all providers in the state are registered as soon as possible.
Proposition 46 aims to implement several measures that would, on the whole, improve the individual doctor’s practice of medicine. Its potentially overwhelming costs, however, indicate the need for more research and planning with respect to malpractice law and drug and alcohol use among physicians.
Please reconsider your position on Prop 46. By opposing Prop 46 you are caving into Big Insurance influence and scare tactics and perpetuating a great injustice on society.
Wall Street greed has given us what is by far the most costly and inefficient health care system in the world. We are over-treated with drugs and procedures to increase profits and must now pay Big Insurance for this system or be fined. Wall Street has also given us forced vaccine courts where a child’s vaccine death is worth only 250K. And it has now denied families in states with low non-economic medical malpractice caps, such as California, any justice and accountability in wrongful death cases of jobless Family members.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans die yearly as the result of preventable medical negligence. Common hospital malpractice errors include: incorrect medication/dosage, surgical mistakes, preventable infections, diagnosis failures, birth delivery mistakes, anesthesia errors and under/over treatment. Americans are prescribed twice the drugs as Europeans and we are not any healthier or live any longer for it – Vioxx caused 60K deaths.
Prop 46 is not about trial lawyers vs doctors; it’s about patient and public safety at the expense of a modest reduction in profits to malpractice insurance companies that make billions. And P46 is about public justice which is currently being denied to you.
In 1975 malpractice insurance companies backed the California MICRA law which capped the non-economic “pain and suffering” award to 250K with no adjustment for inflation and this unjust law has now reduced the value of your jobless family members(children, retirees, ect) to essentially zero as you can not obtain a lawyer in any wrongful death malpractice case for them. Except in a very rare punitive award this is the only award available.
Malpractice attorneys will not take these wrongful death cases because the MICRA law also limits the attorney award to about 30%(BPC 6146) or about $75K of any maximum $250K award and attorney and medical expert costs in a case will quickly exceed $75K, search on “caps harm California” and “protectconsumerjustice org how micra came to be”.
Governor Brown who signed MICRA into law said 17 years later that MICRA did not lower health care costs and only enriched insurers and placed negligent or incompetent physicians outside the reach of judicial accountability. Ralph Nader has reminded Governor Brown’s of this earlier statement and has asked him to support Prop 46. Erin Brockovich and patient safety organizations support P46.
The MICRA cap and low non-economic damage caps in many other states have enabled malpractice insurance companies to earn billions in profits by essentially eliminating their monetary liability in these cases. It’s no wonder malpractice insurance companies have spent tens of millions to defeat Prop 46 which doesn’t even eliminate the cap, only adjusts it for inflation.
California malpractice insurance companies profit an incredible 70 cents for every dollar collected in malpractice premiums which leaves plenty of room for an increase in malpractice payouts without a rate increase to doctors.
P46 will not cause healthcare costs to skyrocket. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office calculates the increased cost at less than 0.5%. 22 other states do not have a non-economic damage cap and medical insurance rates are not any higher in those states nor are there shortages of physicians.
Since 1988 Prop 103 has regulated doctors malpractice insurance premiums and can not be increased unless justified with the Insurance Commissioner.
California drivers do not have a law that eliminates their liability if they kill a jobless person in a car accident and neither should negligent medical professionals and their insurance companies. When there isn’t accountability there isn’t a deterrent to avoid repeating negligence.
Prop 46 also includes testing doctors for drug and alcohol which is done in the transportation industry, the military and in other public safety related occupations. Certainly it is in the public’s interest for doctors to be thinking clearly when they have our lives in their hands.
Over prescribing of prescription narcotics is now a national epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control cited 475,000 emergency room visits and 36,000 deaths from prescription narcotic overdoses in a recent year, at a price tag of $72 billion in avoidable health care expenditures.
Prop 46 will also require physicians to check the state’s existing and secure DOJ CURES prescription drug database before prescribing narcotics and other addictive drugs to curb doctor-shopping drug abusers, to prevent over-dose deaths and to reduce harmful behavior and health care costs.
PLEASE VOTE YES ON PROPOSITION 46 for Public Safety and Patient Justice.
The “potentially overwhelming cost” of preventable medical errors and the toll they take on patients and patients’ families is being borne by the victims currently. Does the UC health system save money because patients injured by medical malpractice in its facilities cannot find legal representation? Sure. And, the longer the cap remains in place, the fewer claims it will have to deal with, saving it even more money. But, that isn’t justice and that isn’t how our system is supposed to work. Reduce malpractice costs by reducing the number of preventable medical errors, not by closing the courthouse door to victims.