MMS NEWS: Vote No on 46!

The Marin Medical Society has joined a broad and bipartisan coalition of doctors, community health centers, hospitals, local governments, unions, education groups, community groups and many others to fight Prop. 46 on the November 2014 ballot.

Prop. 46 was drafted by trial lawyers out to profit from medical lawsuits. If passed, Prop. 46 will increase health care costs, jeopardize people’s ability to see their trusted doctors, and threaten the privacy of personal prescription drug information.

Prop. 46’s main provision will quadruple the non-economic damages cap on California’s successful Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA), the law that governs legal proceedings if someone is injured in a medical procedure. This single change will triple trial lawyers’ legal fees in the noneconomic damages portion of medical lawsuits filed against doctors and hospitals. (Note: Under MICRA, economic damages for past and future lost wages, past and future medical costs, and punitive damages are unlimited.)

If trial lawyers get their way, medical lawsuits and payouts will skyrocket. Someone will have to pay those costs. And that someone . . . is you.

Prop. 46 contains two other unrelated provisions dealing with drug testing and prescription drug databases, which were intentionally included by the backers in an attempt to mislead voters by taking the focus off the lawsuit provisions. The prescription drug database provisions pose serious privacy risks for California patients.

The drug testing provision was included for political, not policy reasons. The lawyers who wrote and funded Prop. 46 have never gone to the state legislature to propose drug testing of doctors. In fact, Jamie Court, the consultant for Prop. 46, cynically told the Los Angeles Times last year that drug testing of doctors was “the ultimate sweetener,” designed to deceive voters about the real reason behind the initiative—to make lawsuits easier and more lucrative for the lawyers who wrote and funded Prop. 46.

Here’s why Prop. 46 should be rejected:

Prop. 46 Is Costly for Consumers
According to a study by California’s former legislative analyst, increasing the medical liability cap via Prop. 46 will mean new lawsuits and massive payouts under this proposition. The end result will be increased health care costs across all sectors by $9.9 billion annually. That amounts to more than $1,000 a year in higher costs for the average California family.

California’s current legislative analyst warns that Prop. 46 could increase state and local government medical liability and health care costs by “hundreds of millions of dollars annually,” placing the burden of this additional cost on all taxpayers.

Prop. 46 Jeopardizes Access to Doctors
If Prop. 46 passes and California’s medical liability cap goes up, patients could also lose their trusted doctors. Many doctors will be forced to leave California to practice in states where medical liability insurance is more affordable.

Respected community clinics, including Planned Parenthood, warn that ob-gyns and other specialists will have no choice but to reduce or eliminate vital services, especially for women and families in underserved areas.

Prop. 46 Threatens Personal Privacy
Prop. 46 forces doctors and pharmacists to use the massive CURES database, which is filled with Californians’ personal prescription information. The proposition’s backers are proposing a mandate that government will find impossible to implement, with a database that has no increased security standards to protect personal prescription information from hacking and theft.

And who controls the database? The government—in an age when government already has too many tools for violating privacy.

Here’s How You Can Get Involved
Visit www.NoOn46.com to become an official member of the No on 46 campaign.
Sign up at www.NoOn46.com to add your name to the growing list of individuals and groups opposed to Prop. 46.
Get important facts, downloads and information at www.NoOn46.com that will help you spread the word about this costly measure.
Contribute at www.NoOn46.com to help fight the trial lawyers.
Follow us on Twitter at @NoOn46.
Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/VoteNoOn46.