Consumer Watchdog sent the following letter to Congressional leaders today in response to a letter sent by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in which he incorrectly cited California's draconian limits on the legal rights of injured patients as a successful cost containment tool. Consumer Watchdog is a nonpartisan nonprofit with offices in California and Washington, D.C. The Governor's October 27, 2009 letter is available at www.gov.ca.gov/archive/press-releases/.
October 29, 2009
The Honorable Harry Reid
Majority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Minority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable John A. Boehner
Minority Leader
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Senator Reid, Senator McConnell, Madam Speaker and Mr. Boehner,
Tuesday, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger wrote you regarding his views on health care reform. While Consumer Watchdog has detailed its views on comprehensive federal health reform many times over the past year, we write today in response to a particular element of the debate addressed by Governor Schwarzenegger, in which he incorrectly cited California's draconian limits on the legal rights of injured patients as a successful cost containment tool.
The plight of injured patients and families subject to unjust legal restriction in California has been well documented. Jury-ordered compensation been slashed by a one-size-fits-all damages cap unadjusted for three decades. Too many children, seniors and people with limited wage loss are unable to get legal representation and are locked out of the justice system altogether because of the restrictions. (See "Malpractice Law May Deny Justice," by Dan Costello, Los Angeles Times, December 29, 2007. For video testimony about the real impact of caps see http://www.JusticeForPatients.org.)
That human toll, however, is not the subject of this letter. Our purpose is to correct Governor Schwarzenegger's analysis of the relationship between malpractice caps and malpractice premiums.
California has, indeed, maintained severe caps on malpractice liability for doctors for more than 30 years, but the Governor ignores the fact that the caps did nothing to reduce doctors' insurance premiums for the first 13 years of the law. We have documented that premiums for California doctors went up by 450% between 1975 and 1988. Only after California voters enacted the comprehensive insurance regulatory system, known as Proposition 103, did doctors begin to see relief from skyrocketing malpractice rates. (You can read our study at http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/documents/1008.pdf.)