The Supreme Court in several states have recently found damage caps in medical malpractice cases to be unconstitutional. These sates include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, , Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tex, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin.
A state law signed into effect in California in 1975 in the face of intense lobbying by a powerful insurance lobby and a manufactured insurance crisis set a cap of Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($250,000.00) on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases. There is no provision to adjust the cap for inflation. If the Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($250,000.00) were adjusted for inflation that limit would be more than One Million Dollars ($1,000,000.00) today. At today's rate, Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars ($250,000.00) is the equivalent of about Sixty Thousand Dollars ($60,000.00) in 1975.
This law, called MICRA, has a disproportionate and unfair impact on people who have little or no income including children, the elderly, stay at home parents, and working class Californians.
With California medical malpractice insurance companies racking up record profits, clear documented evidence that medical malpractice is not driving the rate of increased health insurance and that there is no difference in medical negligence insurance premiums between states such as California that have caps on damages and states that do not, it is time this unfair, unjustified and draconian law be vanquished.