Voters rejected both Proposition 45 and Proposition 46 last week.
Prop. 45 would have further enriched the state’s trial lawyers by opening up the state’s health insurance rate-setting process to legal “intervener” challenges, and Proposition 46 would have increased the incentive for abusive medical malpractice lawsuits.
Voters actually rejected both measures handily, with Prop. 45 losing 60 percent to 40 percent, and Prop. 46 losing 67 percent to 33 percent.
This outcome was a clear signal that voters will not allow trial lawyers to use the initiative process to create more lawsuit abuse in California.
Contrary to some readers thinking I am against all lawsuits and lawyers, I want to make it clear that there have been occasions when I have praised lawyers for their dedicated work and charitable activities.
In the two particular cases cited above, California voters indicated overwhelmingly they are not comfortable with the legal profession when it writes its own laws that further its own financial interests and takes money from the healthcare system.
Dr. Michael Arnold Glueck has written extensively locally and nationally on medical-legal issues.
It is a basic concept of justice that a person injured by the negligence of someone else is entitled to be fully compensated for the injuries. The California legislature decided in 1975 to ignore that basic principle of justice by placing an artificial $250,000 limit on recovery for non-economic damages, thereby depriving many people the recovery they deserved. Proposition 46 would simply have brought the $250,000 number enacted in 1975 up to date. If $250,000 was deemed to be appropriate in 1975, why should the number not be changed to reflect inflation?
Why does Dr. Glueck vilify lawyers, the Davids taking on Goliath to try to recover fair compensation for injured people? The people of California were fooled into voting against their own best interests and against basic principles of justice.
In suggesting that California voters aren’t bright enough to act in their own rational self-interest, you sound a lot like increasingly notorious MIT economist Jon Gruber, Mr. End. In any case, you ought to keep your nose out of Californians’ business and focus on your own state of Wisconsin. Of course, after Gov. Scott Walker’s third comfortable election victory in four years, it’s a safe bet you think voters there are stupid, too.
-Darren McKinney, American Tort Reform Association, Washington, D.C.