California’s MICRA Reforms Figure Into National Debate on Health Care Issues.
Dan Walters, a columnist with The Sacramento Bee, has penned an interesting column for the November 29, 2009 edition indicating how attorney’s fees may play a role in the national health care debate going on in Congress right now. His article is entitled “California plays role in health debate.”
Over 30 years ago, then (and possibly future) Governor Jerry Brown signed into law California’s Medical Injury Compensation Act (MICRA), which is codified at Civil Code section 3333.2 and put a $250,000 cap on recovery of “noneconomic damages” (pain and suffering) by plaintiffs in most medical malpractice cases. Also, MICRA put limits on plaintiffs’ attorneys’ contingency fee recoveries in these types of cases. (See Bus. & Prof. Code, sec. 6146, which enacted a “sliding scale” system.) Now, these species of “caps” are being bandied around in the debate over national health care reforms.
Advocates of these caps believe they should be a part of the national health care package, because they are estimated to save at least $54 billion over a decade. The MICRA caps have indeed lowered medical malpractice insurance premiums and limited recovery of contingency fee awards by plaintiffs’ attorneys in California.
President Barack Obama has been noncommittal on whether these types of caps should be included in the national health care package. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has pushed through the House of Representatives a provision in the national health care bill that provides “incentive payments” to any state that adopts a “fair resolution” process for medical malpractice claims but only if the state does not limit attorney’s fees or impose caps on damages.
So, stay tuned on what happens on these bitterly contested questions. There is a lot of lobby money being spent on both sides of the issues.
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