Vote “Yes” on Proposition 46: By attorney Jeffrey D. Bohn There is a LOT of propaganda flying around the internet regarding Prop 46 so from the mouth of a medical malpractice attorney Id like to state some facts. Lets talk money first since thats what people seem to misstate the most. 1. The current law that caps the value of your life to $250,000 when you are injured or killed by a medical mistake is called MICRA. In 1975, it was sponsored and passed by the same Medical Insurance companies who have paid over 50 million in opposing Proposition 46. At that time, the Insurance Lobby got MICRA passed by using threats and lies such as “Unless we cap a patient’s damages for death or injury to $250,000 your insurance costs will skyrocket and all the doctors will leave California!” This turned out to be downright lies. Here is a list of the states with No Cap on the value of your life. Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming. None of them have skyrocketing medical costs or problems with doctors leaving their states. 2. Prop 46 increases that limit ONLY by the ACTUAL cost of living between 1975 and 2014. (1.1 Million) It also provides for a cost of living increase of 3% per year. 3. An attorneys fee in medical malpractice cases is limited by law to approx.. 25%. (Over $500,000, the attorney fee is set at 15%) So most of the money DOES go to the victim. 4. The #3 ranked cause of death in the US is health care negligence. Most good doctors NEVER get sued in their lifetimes. However the few incompetent doctors get sued over and over for good reason: they are hurting and sometimes killing their patients. Dont ask me, ask your favorite nurse what the skill differences are between the doctors she knows. You WILL be shocked. Ask her/him: Out of the drs she knows, what % would she allow to operate on/treat her family? 5. In the 1980s the AMA started to limit the students allowed into each medical school. This created a huge demand for doctors that was filled by foreign educated doctors. Many (not all) of these foreign medical schools are below the standard of U.S. Medical schools. The relative skill of practicing doctors in the US varies wildly! Under the current law, these bad doctors are arbitrarily protected. Any jury award over $250,000 is automatically reduced by the judge to $250,000 after the jury goes home. In this sense our legal system is broken: unfortunately a medical malpractice case is controlled by outdated law set in 1975. 6. The Medical Board is failing in disciplining and removing bad doctors from practice. In fact, its current position is allows doctors to continue practice despite multiple cases of gross negligence. In a medical malpractice trial I am not allowed to tell a jury about a doctors past discipline. In the last case I tried to a verdict, the Dr was guilty of 28 separate cases of Gross Negligence admitted by him to the medical board prior to treating my client, a child. The Medical Board only put this Dr on probation and allowed him to continue his practice which cost my client her jaw. 7. Passing Prop 46 will only minimally increase medical costs. (Actual studies show less than 1%) 8. The No on Prop 46 movement is paid by the billion dollar Insurance Companies. The lies put forth by the insurance companies are not based on science or fact. They make their position not by reasoned truth but by scare tactics, insults, half-truths and outright lies. Please vote Yes on Prop 46, it will force discipline on the small percentage of drug addicted, drunken, dangerous, undereducated, negligent doctors who are hurting and killing our family members. youtu.be/ENR9jAABiys
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 02:26:19 +0000
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