Consumer Watchdog executive director Carmen Balber has been with the organization for overtwo decades. She spent four years directing the group’s Washington, D.C. office where she advocated for key health insurance market reforms that were ultimately enacted into law as part of the Affordable Care Act.
Balber is recognized as a leading expert on a wide range of personal insurance issues and has authored or co-authored numerous reports on the auto, health and medical malpractice insurance industries, and insurance rate regulation. Her recent advocacy focuses on the impacts of climate change and insurance industry accountability for rising prices and reduced access to insurance for homeowners and renters.
She also leads Consumer Watchdog’s advocacy to improve patient safety in California, including campaigns to win new access to justice for victims of medical negligence by updating the state’s cap on medical malpractice damages; winning a voice for injured consumers at the Medical Board of California; and legislation requiring doctors to check a patient’s prescription history before prescribing opioids and other drugs. In 2012, she managed the coalition effort to defeat Prop 33, a $17 million insurance industry initiative that would have raised rates on good drivers. She has appeared as a commentator on these topics on broadcasts and in publications across the country.
As an organizer with Consumer Watchdog, Balber ran campaigns to pass volunteer-qualified ballot measures enacting the nation’s strongest municipal conflict of interest protections in five cities across California. She also coordinated citizen organizing efforts in Consumer Watchdog’s successful volunteer lobbying effort to block a legislative utility bailout in Sacramento in 2001.
Before joining Consumer Watchdog, Balber learned the ropes at the Colorado and Washington PIRGs. She holds a B.A. in Politics from Pomona College in Claremont, California and is a graduate of UWC-USA in Montezuma, New Mexico, one of 17 secondary schools across the globe dedicated to making education a force for peace, sustainability and change by bringing together youth from a diversity of countries and cultures to live and learn. She is a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Anishinaabe).
Carmen Balber talks about how misdiagnosis or missed diagnosis is one of the leading causes of medical errors in this country.
Aug 29, 2023Secret Black Box Climate Models are Prohibited by Proposition 103 Los Angeles, CA – At a Department of Insurance hearing today, the non-profit…
Jul 13, 2023
Sacramento, CA – Legislation to improve oversight of dangerous doctors and give consumers rights at the Medical Board of California was approved by…
Jul 11, 2023Homeowners who clear brush and harden their homes against fire are 75% less likely to have their homes burnt down and in…
Jul 5, 2023
Carmen Balber explains how Californians don't have a right to know about their doctor's investigations, which is shocking for the patient and…
Jun 20, 2023
Carmen Balber, executive director with consumer watchdog, understands that computer glitches happen but worries how information so sensitive can be sent without…
Jun 5, 2023
Sacramento, CA – Legislation to improve physician oversight and give consumers rights at the Medical Board of California was approved by the state…
Jun 2, 2023
Consumer Watchdog's Carmen Balber says policyholders must be asked about their mileage but not that often; insurance companies only technically have to…
May 26, 2023
Public Control, Mandatory Patient Interview, Among Bill’s Consumer Protections Sacramento, CA – Legislation to strengthen consumer protections and improve physician oversight at…
May 18, 2023
Consumer Watchdog's Carmen Balber says if you've been treated by someone you suspect was not a doctor, you should absolutely report that…
Apr 25, 2023
Sacramento, CA – Proposed legislation would enact important changes to hold dangerous doctors more accountable in California, but excludes crucial reforms that will…
Apr 24, 2023
San Diego, CA — Patients in California are exposed to harm by dangerous doctors because California law does not quickly discipline or require…
Apr 11, 2023
Two years ago, and four years before that, and at every legislative review of the Medical Board of California in recent memory,…
Mar 29, 2023By Staff Reporters, KPCC – Los Angeles, CA Click below to listen to the audio of this radio broadcast segment.
Mar 27, 2023Initial findings of the Medical Board Enforcement Monitor, released this week, confirm that the Medical Board’s investigations of doctors are hamstrung by…
Mar 16, 2023By Pat Thurston, KCBS – Los Angeles, CA Click below to listen to the audio of this radio broadcast segment.
Mar 3, 2023Los Angeles, CA – In response to Consumer Watchdog’s challenge to Medical Insurance Exchange of California’s (“MIEC”) proposed rate increase on doctors’…
Feb 22, 2023