Consumer Watchdog’s President and Chairman of the Board is an award-winning and nationally recognized consumer advocate. Capitol Weekly, naming Jamie to its “Top 100” list of unelected movers and shakers in California politics, wrote, “Court has made a career of battling all comers in the interest of the public, and his take-no-prisoners approach has earned him plenty of enemies.” Jamie’s latest book is The Progressive’s Guide To Raising Hell: How To Win Grassroots Campaigns, Pass Ballot Box Laws And Get The Change You Voted For (Chelsea Green, 2010).
“Americans angry about the state of their government might find in Court’s persuasive manifesto a cause for action,” Publishers Weekly writes. “With great accessibility and a fired-up attitude, Court brings his lessons in empowerment to the people.” He is also the author of Corporateering: How Corporate Power Steals Your Freedom And What You Can Do About It (Tarcher Putnam, 2003) and co-author of Making A Killing: HMOs and the Threat To Your Health (Common Courage Press, 1999). Jamie has led dozens of major corporate and political campaigns to reform insurers, banks, technology companies, oil companies, utilities and political practices. He helped to pioneer the HMO patients’ rights movement in the United States, sponsoring successful laws in California and aiding them elsewhere, and was an early champion of many of the most important consumer protections in the federal Affordable Care Act years before they were enacted. In recent years, he has led the campaign to hold California oil refiners accountable for price gouging at the pump which resulted in the toughest oil refinery regulation in America.
A frequent media commentator and op-ed contributor, Jamie is a high-profile and stalwart defender of consumers’ rights. The Los Angeles Times calls him “a tireless consumer advocate.” The Wall Street Journal writes, “He’s notorious for his dramatic, sharp-tongued attacks on the health- and auto-insurance industries, and on any politician who takes their campaign cash.” His public interest career began as an advocate for the homeless and as a community organizer. Jamie’s Alma mater is Pomona College, where he graduated with a BA in History in 1989.
Google Court Takes Up Whether Firefighters’ Kids Get Autism Coverage
A panel of the California Court of Appeal today took up the long standing dispute about insurance companies’ obligations to cover a critical treatment for autistic children. At stake is whether the autistic children of many firefighters, cops and state employees will get the appropriate care when they need it.
Historic Step
We just wanted to let you know that we have filed a ballot measure that has been 37 years in the making. If we collect about 750,000 valid signatures, voters will have a chance to adjust for inflation a three and a half decade-old cap on the value of a child's life if he or she is killed by medical negligence -- a $250,000 limit that has never been changed.
Consumer Watchdog Report Shows Keystone XL Raises American Gas Prices
SANTA MONICA, CA –The Keystone XL pipeline will raise gasoline prices in the United States, hiking prices at the pump 20 to 40 cents per gallon in the Midwest, with no long-term economic benefit to the U.S. economy, says a new report by Consumer Watchdog.
The report finds that:
Hall of Famer Speaks Out in Bee on His Family’s Tragedy and Patient Safety
The war over patient safety is heating up in Sacramento. Yesterday, Pulitizer Prize winning Los Angeles Times columnist Mike Hiltzik wrote a cut-to-the-heart-of-it column shredding the phony arguments of those resisting the patient safety reforms Bob Pack and Consumer Watchdog have been fighting for all year.
Big Win and Winners
California is the only state in America where drivers spent less per year on auto insurance in 2010 than they did in 1989. That startling fact comes from the insurance industry’s own data just analyzed by the Consumer Federation of America.
Consumer Watchdog Praises Mozilla For Taking New Steps To Protect Privacy Online
Santa Monica, CA – Consumer Watchdog today praised Mozilla as the nonprofit foundation announced it would move forward with addition of a setting in its popular Firefox browser to block the most intrusive tracking “cookies” by default.
Less Competition on Health Insurance Exchange Could Lead to Higher Rates Absent Health Insurance Rate Regulation
Santa Monica, CA -- Consumer Watchdog responded today to the news that the state’s three largest health insurance companies -- Blue Cross, Blue Shield and Kaiser -- would continue to dominate the health insurance market in the California health exchange with concerns that patients will continue to pay excessive premiums because of decreased competition. The group applauded the fact that Californians now lo