Medical negligence is the third leading cause of death in the US, killing 200,000 to 400,000 people every year and injuring millions more.  Black, Hispanic and Indigenous patients experience more preventable medical errors and suffer worse health outcomes because they are more likely to be uninsured, underinsured and receive lower quality healthcare.

Instead of enacting new laws to protect patients, hospitals, providers and their insurance companies spend millions of dollars lobbying Congress and state legislatures to stop us from holding them accountable. They impose caps on compensation for victims of medical negligence that close the courtroom door and ensure injured patients never get justice. We know that greedy insurance companies, not injured patients seeking justice, are to blame for driving up the cost of health care.

Consumer Watchdog fights to make health care safer and to restore the rights of patients to take negligent doctors and hospitals to court.

RESOURCES ABOUT MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE, PATIENT SAFETY AND PROVIDER ACCOUNTABILITY

Patient Story Library

Read the stories of families harmed by medical negligence and malpractice compensation caps.

Myths & Facts

Medical Negligence Caps Hurt Women of Color

Insurance Reform, Not Caps, Reduced Malpractice Insurance Rates In California

Caps Disproportionately Harm People of Color

Get the Facts about California’s 45-Year-Old Limits on Patient Rights

California’s malpractice compensation cap is the most regressive in the country.

Compensation caps prevent women from getting justice

State without caps have more doctors than states with caps

Reports & Resources

INSURANCE REGULATION      

How Insurance Reform Lowered Doctors’ Medical Malpractice Rates In California: And How Malpractice Caps Failed
In this groundbreaking report, Consumer Watchdog shows the success of insurance regulation and dispels the myth that California’s malpractice cap is responsible for reducing insurance premiums, and therefore health care costs, in the state.

And the 2013 report update: RATE REGULATION: The Rx for Medical Malpractice Insurance Rates

GRAPHIC: Sacramento Bee Medical Malpractice Premiums
This Sacramento Bee infographic shows how malpractice insurance premiums spiked after California’s malpractice cap law passed in 1975, and only fell after the passage of insurance reform Proposition 103 in 1988.

False Accounting: How Medical Malpractice Insurance Companies Inflate Losses to Justify Sudden Surges in Rates and Tort Reform
A Consumer Watchdog study reviewed medical malpractice insurance companies’ books and found the insurers consistently inflated the amount they estimated they would pay out in claims. The companies used the overstated figures to justify enormous increases in doctors’ premiums and pressure legislators to enact restrictions on patients’ legal rights. Read the press release about the report.

WATCH: Rate Regulation, not Arbitrary Caps on Damages, Keeps Insurance Premiums Down 

Former Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones explains that rate regulation, not California’s medical malpractice caps, has prevented excessive medical malpractice insurance rates.

Testimony

Consumer Watchdog has provided testimony before the U.S. Congress, as well as state lawmakers in Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Washington and Oregon, regarding the success of insurance reform in California and the failure of malpractice caps to lower doctors’ insurance premiums.

Assessing the Need to Enact Medical Liability Reform
February 27, 2003 — Consumer Watchdog Founder Harvey Rosenfield presents testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee on Health on the success of California Insurance reform, Proposition 103, in restraining medical malpractice insurance premiums and the failure of the state’s severe malpractice liability caps to reduce rates.

HR 4600 Will Harm Patients & Enrich Only Insurers
July 17, 2002 — Testimony of Consumer Watchdog President Jamie Court before U.S. Congress.

Regulating Damages vs. Regulating Insurance Rates: The California Experience
April 22, 2004 — Testimony of Consumer Watchdog Executive Director before the Oklahoma state legislature.

Proposition 46: The Troy and Alana Pack Patient Safety Act

Troy, 10, and 7-year-old Alana Pack, were killed on a street near their Bay Area home a decade ago by a doctor-shopping prescription drug abuser stoned on Vicodin and vodka. Since then, their Dad, Bob Pack, has been battling to enact changes in state law and medical practices to ensure such a tragedy will never happen again.

Consumer Watchdog backed Bob Pack’s 2014 ballot measure, Proposition 46, that would have saved lives by: Adjusting the state’s $250,000 malpractice compensation cap for four decades of inflation; Requiring doctors to use the state’s prescription drug monitoring program to stem opioid abuse; and, Mandating random drug testing of doctors to prevent physician substance abuse.

In 2014, Proposition 46 was the most expensive ballot measure campaign in California. The malpractice insurance industry, physician lobby and Kaiser industry spent $58 million dollars on a negative ad campaign to defeat it. However, over the course of the campaign, every major newspaper in California endorsed the need to adjust the cap. In 2016, the legislature passed the second element of Prop 46, requiring doctors to check the state prescription drug database before prescribing opioids. That law took effect in October of 2018.