Update: Proposition 46

By Emily Largent

I previously wrote about California Proposition 46–which proposed to raise the cap on pain and suffering awards in malpractice cases from $250,000 to $1.1 million, require doctors to check a statewide database of drug prescriptions before prescribing some narcotics, and require doctors to undergo random drug and alcohol testing–here.

What happened?  On Tuesday, voters “soundly defeated a proposal to lift a decades-old cap on courtroom damages for medical negligence, after a multimillion-dollar political duel pitting trial lawyers against doctors and insurers.”  Proposition 46 was defeated by a 2-to-1 margin, with 67% of voters rejecting it. (There is some speculation that an error in translation for voter materials could have affected the way Vietnamese-speaking voters voted on Tuesday; however, there is no suggestion this would have changed the outcome.)

Proposition 46 was the most expensive race in California this election.  The No side spent close to $60 million in its efforts to see the Proposition defeated, almost seven times the spending on the Yes side.

Emily Largent

Emily Largent is an Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine. She also teaches at the University of Pennsylvania LawSchool. Her research examines ethical and regulatory issues arising in human subjects research and when integration of clinical research is integrated with clinical care; she has a particular focus on Alzheimer’s disease research. Emily received her PhD in Health Policy (Ethics) from Harvard and her JD from Harvard Law School. Prior to that, she received her BS in Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and completed a fellowship in the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health.

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