California's landmark Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act has for more than 30 years lowered malpractice insurance rates and encouraged more than 30 others states to enact similar reform measures, The Sacramento Bee's Dan Walters wrote in a recent column.
But since MICRA was enacted in the mid-1970s, plaintiffs' lawyers have fought -- unsuccessfully -- to weaken the law and overturn its $250,000 limit on recoverable non-economic damages.
As Walters wrote, the plaintiffs' lawyers have failed in their efforts to modify or repeal the cap even when their bills were carried by speakers of the state Assembly.
Advocates of the cap have urged President Barack Obama and Congress to make it part of national health care. As Walters notes, the Congressional Budget Office has said that such a cap would save $54 billion in health care costs over a decade, and other estimates are higher.
He writes:
"Obama has been noncommittal, but (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi and other Democratic leaders of Congress, as a gesture toward the national trial lawyer lobby, included a provision in their bill that would give 'incentive payments' to states that establish a 'fair resolution' process for malpractice claims but only if a state 'does not limit attorneys' fees or impose caps on damages.'"
"It's likely to be a major issue when House and Senate leaders try to iron out a compromise bill, and if it survives, (Attorney General Jerry) Brown, who aspires to return to the governorship in 2010, may have to decide whether the cap he supported in 1975 will be repealed."
Walters' column prompted nearly two dozen comments after it was posted on Monday. Some of the comments cut right to the heart of the matter:
"The Lawyers should be capped at no more than 10% of the judgment overall; this would include all costs and time billed," wrote one individual. "The only ones who benefit from no CAP (are) the trial lawyers."
Wrote another: "The threat of excessive litigation is still so strong that today doctors are forced to practice what has become known as defensive medicine: Doctors order lots of extra, costly tests just to protect themselves from litigation."
And a third added: "Repealing the cap would be a huge mistake for California. What we really need to do is extend it to product liability as well as other non-medical service providers. That might be a good first step in showing the rest of the country that California is business-friendly."