Op-Ed: DAY OF INTERNATIONAL
Medical malpractice ballot measure DEMOCRACY would benefit lawyers Perhaps more than any state in America, California continues to make progress toward the historic promise of health access for all. Vital to that prognosis has been our state’s community health centers, located in medically underserved communities and providing diverse, vulnerable populations with primary and reproductive care. Pandemic-related stresses on our overall health system, including the most recent hospitalization surge, has underscored the safety-net imperative of a strong and financially solvent system of community clinics. It would be hard to imagine a worse possible time to pass a ballot measure that would disrupt the financing of California’s community health centers and access to the physicians and
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SAN JOAQUIN PHYSICIAN
other clinicians providing essential care to Californians in need while increasing health costs for every Californian. But that’s what the proponents of the misleadingly self-proclaimed Fairness for Injured Patients Act, or Changes to Medical Malpractice Lawsuits Cap Initiative, appearing on the statewide ballot in November are trying to do. This measure would dramatically impact the cost and delivery of health care in California – but it’s not written by health experts or real-life medical practitioners. Instead it was drafted to allow a few to make millions more from filing personal injury lawsuits.
SPRING 2022
