Letters: Malpractice cap needs a raise

Re “Malpractice battle drags on,” Column, March 6

I have experienced California’s outdated medical malpractice cap in a case involving the death of my daughter. Clearly, the net effect of maintaining the existing cap ensures that the public is summarily denied the right to legal representation because attorneys can’t afford to accept any case more medically complex than a drunk doctor amputating the wrong leg.

The cap of $250,000 for pain and suffering can’t cover the upfront litigation costs. But there is no cap for lost wages, meaning that justice is mostly limited to those who earn big bucks. Where does that leave folks of modest incomes?

Claiming that raising the cap will feed greedy lawyers is a canard. Attorneys take these cases on contingency, advancing all costs; they get paid only if they win.

Raising the cap is necessary to make sure that Lady Justice’s blindfold remains firmly in place.

Roberta Gold

Encino

I share George Skelton’s dismay over the Legislature’s failure to boost California’s $250,000 medical malpractice cap to account for 38 years of inflation. But I take exception with his use of “gimmicked up” in describing key components of the Troy and Alana Pack Patient Safety Act, set for the November ballot if

Sacramento fails to step up.

The act’s provisions to submit doctors to drug tests and mandate the use of the state’s prescription drug database are warranted by real-world problems. The state medical board says nearly 1 in 5 physicians will suffer substance abuse problems. Meanwhile, only 6% of physicians use the prescription drug database to weed out “doctor shopping” by abusers.

I lost my kids Troy, 10, and Alana, 7, to a doctor shopper driving under the influence of narcotics. There is nothing gimmicky about saving lives.

Bob Pack

Danville, Calif.

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