MICRA Update: Victory in the Capitol but the fight goes on California’s legislative session officially wrapped up last week, and because of aggressive advocacy by the California Medical Association (CMA) and action taken by thousands of California physicians, a bill to scuttle the state’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) was never introduced. Despite weeks of pandering to members of the Legislature, California’s trial lawyers, along with their front group Consumer Watchdog, were unable to find enough legislators to vote for their greedy and misguided effort at lifting MICRA’s historic protections for their own financial gain. A majority of the Legislature ... September 20, 2013 General Advocacy, Malpractice Insurance, MICRA, Professional Liability 0 0 Comment Read More »
Trial attorneys re-file anti-MICRA ballot initiative On August 30, the trial attorneys re-filed their proposed anti-MICRA ballot initiative with the Attorney General’s Office, a political maneuver that will buy them more time as they attempt to navigate around the organized opposition to the proposal. The revised initiative was filed only hours before the start of the long Labor Day weekend, an obvious attempt at keeping their proposal off the public’s radar as best they could. Despite the revisions, the central focus of this proposed initiative remains to be to more than quadruple California's current $250,000 cap ... September 10, 2013 General Medical Malpractice, MICRA, Professional Liability 0 0 Comment Read More »
MICRA: Haven't we all seen this before? For nearly four decades California trial attorneys have been trying to rewrite the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA). By now, you’ve likely heard the main narrative spun by the trial lawyer-backed Consumer Watchdog and other MICRA opponents – 38 years is too long for a law such as MICRA to exist without being updated in some fashion. Oddly enough, Consumer Watchdog and others are quick to leave out the fact that the only time MICRA was successfully altered, trial lawyers agreed to back off in exchange for a bigger piece ... August 26, 2013 General Medical Malpractice, MICRA, Medical Liability 0 0 Comment Read More »
MICRA Update: Crunch time in the Capitol A little more than three weeks remain in the 2013 legislative session, which means both sides in the growing fight over California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) are working hard to woo members of the state Assembly and Senate over to their side of the issue. In the days following the Legislature’s return from its summer recess, the California Medical Association (CMA) and other members of the Californians Allied for Patient Protection began blanketing legislative offices with letters of support for the historic patient and provider protections built into ... August 22, 2013 General Advocacy, MICRA, Medical Malpractice, Professional Liability 0 0 Comment Read More »
Public trust in physicians an asset in the coming MICRA fight By now, you’ve likely heard that Consumer Watchdog, a political astroturf group backed heavily by California’s trial attorneys, has thrown its weight behind a ballot initiative that seeks undo major provisions of California’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA). Should MICRA be touched, it would severely limit access to care of millions of patients across the state. Rest assured, this initiative is misguided and fueled by the trial attorneys' desire to inflate jury awards as a way to increase the legal fees they can collect from their clients. The California Medical Association ... August 8, 2013 General Access to Care, Medical Malpractice, MICRA, Professional Liability 0 0 Comment Read More »
