CA'S MALPRACTICE CAP ASSOCIATED WITH 16% MORE ADVERSE EVENTS

The lack of adjustment to reflect inflation or the growth of household incomes is inequitable, because it lowers the real value of the reward — which in current dollars, could be as much as $1.5 million – six times the 1975 value, says Prof. Jack Needleman, chair of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health's Department of Health Policy and Management. "The second issue is that the cap, by lowering the risk of suit for malpractice, has also weakened the deterrent effect of risk of being sued on physician’s efforts to avoid malpractice."