Propaganda against increasing cap in California is now available

Back in July of last year I commented on an initiative in California to raise the cap on pain and suffering damages which has not been increased since it was adopted in 1975.  Go here for my original comment on the issue.  More recently, in March of this year, it was announced that supporters of the initiative had enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot in November.  The measure is now known as Proposition 46.

As I said in my original comment, "not surprisingly, the opposing sides of the debate are the predictable ones. For increasing the limit of the cap are consumer advocates, victims' advocates, plaintiffs' lawyers, medical malpractice victims, among others. Against it are large corporations, supporters of tort reform, the insurance industry, the medical establishment and organizations that defend them, etc."  Given this alignment of forces, it is also not surprising to know now that those opposing the measure have raised over $36 million dollars, while those supporting it have raised only $2.3 million.

And, again not surprisingly - at least to anyone paying attention to these issues - those opposing the measure have not been able to find any new arguments other than those that have been proven false or inaccurate many times over by reports and studies of all sorts. You would think that, with all their resources, they could come up with something better, or new, or true.

This recently introduced anti prop 46 ad is illustrative.  It blames lawyers for prop 46 - because everyone hates lawyers, right? - and then repeats, without any support for it, the proven false claims that medical malpractice claims increase health care costs for everyone.  It is ironic that the slogan of the campaign is "check the facts" when there are none (in the ad or the website it asks you to visit.)

If you click on the medical malpractice or the tort reform tabs on the right side and scroll down you will find many stories with links to reports, studies and other information that debunks the unsupported allegations the ad and the website try to pass as facts.

Thanks to the TortsProf blog for the link to the ad.