MICRA Update: The Time for Saber Rattling Is Over
Donate Today to Help Defend MICRA
For months, California physicians have known that defending the state’s Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) would be a battle, and that the back and forth rhetoric between healthcare providers and lawyers would eventually lead to the first shots of the coming ballot war being fired.
It appears that time has come.
From Redding to San Diego, canvassers working to support the trial lawyers’ anti-MICRA ballot language have hit the streets, and have reportedly been gathering signatures at an alarming rate. As expected, the signature gatherers are framing the initiative as an effort to ensure patient safety through mandatory drug testing of physicians, largely ignoring the deceptive and greed-fueled provisions that would see MICRA gutted of its historic reforms and patient protections.
Despite being collected through misdirection, every signature gathered puts the trial lawyers’ initiative one step closer toward the November 2014 ballot.
California physicians must stand up and expose these deceitful tactics. With a donation of only $50 to defend MICRA, you can help ensure that voters learn the importance of MICRA and how their access to care would suffer without the law.
The Consumer Attorneys of California, the trial lawyers’ statewide organization, has put nearly $2 million behind the signature gathering effort, which is expected to be more than enough to fuel a successful push toward the ballot. To date, every dollar they’ve raised has come from an attorney.
Knowing this, California physicians must prepare to dig in for a long fight, one in which they will continue to educate their patients on the importance of MICRA and how their own practices and communities would be affected should the trial attorneys successfully overhaul the law.
Groups such as CALPAC will continue to expose the trial lawyers’ deceptive tactics and inform the voting public that this initiative is nothing more than a thinly veiled money grab that puts California’s patients at risk. In order to convey this message successfully, physicians must continue to support MICRA through donations that will bolster its defenses.
Polls have shown that Californians support MICRA and its objectives, which is why trial attorneys are being forced to direct the public’s attention away from the anti-MICRA provisions of their proposed initiative.
If California physicians can successfully convey our message to the public, we will win this fight and MICRA will continue to stand ensuring patients have access to quality healthcare.
Please support us in this campaign, knowing that contributions could not come at a more vital time for our profession. Again, with a donation of $50 or more, you can help ensure that access to care in California is not compromised by the greed of trial attorneys.
Thank you in advance for your support, and know that I look forward to celebrating our successful defense of MICRA in the near future.
Sincerely,
Richard Thorp, MD
President, California Medical Association