Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Joe Dunn and CMA

This is old news, but I haven't blogged about it yet. Former state senator Joe Dunn (d-Orange County), who used to be a plaintiff's lawyer and has always been close to the Consumer Attorneys of California, is the new chief lobbyist for the California Medical Association.

As long as I've worked with them, CMA's chief focus has been protecting the odious medical malpractice caps called "MICRA" (the Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act)--these extremely low caps on damage awards effectively prevent patients who are injured by negligent health care providers (including hospitals) from getting any lawyer to represent them--it's just not worth taking the case.

Yet the California Medical Association, under the leadership of the late great Steve Thompson, had made some strides in working towards meaningful health care coverage, and occasionally escaped from the dominance of Kaiser Permanente, the giant HMO that pays some 50% of its membership fees on behalf of Kaiser doctors--ooh, I should tell you my favorite Steve Thompson story.

Will Joe Dunn, champion of individual rights now be in the position of fighting to keep MICRA caps low? It's hard to imagine CMA would hire him without a solemn committment to defend MICRA. And it's hard to picture the Joe Dunn I know standing up for negligent doctors. Stay tuned...

Monday, December 18, 2006

White elephant gift, people unclear on the concept?

The other day I was in the store Mixed Bag on K street in Sacramento (where everything they sell is small--it's ingenious. You pick this $5 item, this $6 item, next thing you know you're up at the cash register dropping $150 bucks and you can't figure out how!)--a woman comes up to the counter asking for help, "Do you think this will work for my white elephant gift?" displaying a hideous item she's found on one of the shelves.

The shopkeeper and I exchange quick glances. Um, isn't the point of the white elephant that you're giving away something that you didn't want but maybe someone else would? Are you supposed to go out and deliberately pay good money to buy something that you think the recipient would hate?

In my community, every year a different "lucky" cohouser takes home the same horrible garlic roaster from the white elephant gift exchange. Until now I've assumed that the original purchaser of the item thought it was a nice gift, but now I begin to wonder...