THE GOODS : Reform-Minded : Prop. 103 Author Harvey Rosenfield Is Out to Revamp Anything That Hurts Consumers

Harvey Rosenfield had to get up before dawn for his recent live interview on NBC’s “Today,” but it was well worth the trouble. His advice for consumers on ways to protect themselves against medical malpractice got immediate feedback.

“It was amazing,” he says. “I would say we got more than 100 calls just that morning from physicians, patients and policy-makers all over the country.”

For Rosenfield, 42, educating consumers is a full-time job and a personal commitment. Like his friend and mentor Ralph Nader, he considers himself a generalist. “I find it stimulating to have a lot of things going at once,” he says.

His new book is “Silent Violence, Silent Death: A Consumer Guide to the Medical Malpractice Epidemic” (Essential Books, 1994).

But for the past seven years his biggest thing going has been Proposition 103, the widely imitated California insurance reform initiative that Rosenfield wrote and, with the considerable help of Nader, steered to victory in 1988. Because of legal resistance from the insurance industry, Rosenfield’s title is still director of the privately funded Proposition 103 Enforcement Project, which pays him $60,000 a year. The Proposition 103 Enforcement and other consumer efforts Rosenfield works on fall under a nonprofit umbrella organization called the Network Project.

Rosenfield has a relish for any issue where the consumer seems to be getting rolled over by somebody’s special interest, and he likes to be on the attack.

“It’s important to have a proactive agenda and be on the offensive,” he declares.

Sitting in his office in a third-floor complex on West Pico Boulevard, where the prominent paperback on his desk is “Insurance Ripoffs and Dirty Tricks,” he runs through current projects he and his staff of attorneys have launched:

“Nader and I have been working on a study of billing errors to show how customers are nickeled and dimed to death on their bills. We are charged all sorts of late fees, but what happens, say, if the telephone company mis-bills us? We have to call them, we get put on hold, finally get them to fix it and they don’t pay us any penalty.

“Another thing we’re talking about, which is dear to my heart, is campaign reform. We’re meeting with other groups on this. There have to be laws to protect democracy from special interests.

“We’ve done a lot of work on health care. We’ve created a project called Consumers for Quality Care and we’re getting ready to announce a series of health-care bills for the Legislature.”

Rosenfield, who lives in Venice with his wife, artist Georgia Bragg, and their two children, grew up in suburban Boston. He has been looking out for consumers’ welfare since he met Nader almost 20 years ago. Rosenfield was a student at Georgetown Law School with a “vague notion of doing something worthwhile” when he saw a small article in Washingtonian magazine about a consumer lobby group needing help.

“This was in 1976 and it was a brand-new thing. I went over there and found Congress Watch”--the lobbying arm of Public Citizen, Nader’s largest watchdog group.

He went to work for Congress Watch for $600 a summer while most of his law school friends were making about $2,000 interning in corporate firms. After law school, Rosenfield joined Nader.

“He sent me to California to work on utility rates. I was here in 1986 and we decided we had to go against the insurance companies.”

Rosenfield still works closely with Nader, who wrote the introduction to his malpractice book. “I am honored to be able to say I speak with him almost every day,” Rosenfield says.

He also shares Nader’s dedication to work. Decorating his office wall is a huge artwork created by daughter Maisy, 5, that includes the observation: “My dad has two offices--one is at the house and one is where you have to drive. He enjoys working.”

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A master of grandstanding gestures that capture the media spotlight (he once tried to deliver a truckload of cow manure to State Farm Insurance Co.’s Los Angeles headquarters), Rosenfield seemingly has retained the zest of his intern days.

Over lunch at a neighborhood restaurant, his conversation hops from insurers who hike earthquake rates and illegally base auto rates on zip codes, to the pending legislation in Washington to curb the rights of injured consumers to file lawsuits.

“If you are injured by a negligent physician, your only recourse is to go to court as aggrieved individuals. They are trying to limit this. One bill (H.R 1075) rocketed through the House and now they’re trying to do the same thing in the Senate, which is where we are making our last stand,” he says.

Late last week, Consumers for Quality Care launched a “Casualty of the Day” campaign. They’ll issue a daily profile of a victim of medical malpractice, a dangerous product or investment fraud. “We fax these profiles to every member of the Senate and 1,000 members of the media,” he says. “It’s already catching on. I just got a call from ‘Face the Nation’ and they wanted more information.”

He sees his organizations as among the few voices speaking up for victims.

“This is where we’re at today: Special interests rule everything. People are so used to the corruption of the political process that they feel absolutely powerless if they don’t have money.”

Rosenfield views Proposition 103 as one of the few contemporary examples of citizen action. “It has delivered $800 million in rate rollbacks, with between $1.5 billion and $2 billion to go. It held California insurance rates down when everybody else’s were escalating and it provided an elected insurance commissioner.”

It has also taken almost eight years of his life, he adds. (When he recently received his 20th Century rollback check for $232, his wife’s only comment was, “All that work for $232?”)

Rosenfield says he didn’t think about the timeline when he took on the crusade. “I didn’t think about the commitment and I didn’t think the insurance companies could spend six years tying it up in the courts. But we have been vindicated by the U.S. Supreme Court. I feel like it was an honor to have helped people.”