PROTECT CONSUMER JUSTICE.ORG

If you’re a Californian who doesn’t have health insurance, state law requires hospitals to give you an estimate as to how much a medical procedure will cost. It’s a law that, apparently, most hospitals don’t observe.

The court will let stand a $55 million punitive damage award in a case involving a California woman who has paralyzed when her Ford Explorer rolled over. The victims’ attorneys said, “Ford was on notice, long before it designed the Explorer, that knowingly designing and selling a vehicle that exposes consumers to severe injury or death, when the defect could be corrected at minimal cost, could result in punitive damages liability.”

Defense attorneys maintained the likely cause was exposure to amosite asbestos on the USS Porterfield, which had more than 30 tons of insulation that contained asbestos.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is sending more inmates to out-of-state prisons run by a private company that recently made a $100,000 donation to a ballot campaign committee controlled by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Almost nine percent of surgeons who responded to an unscientific survey commissioned by the American College of Surgeons said they were concerned they had made a “major medical error” in the previous three months.

Six health insurance companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index are expected to have a combined profit on the year of more than $10 billion. A decade ago, their combined profit was just over $3 billion.

Drywall manufactured in China may cause breathing problems for residents of new homes that contain it and may also cause electrical problems in those homes. The drywall has been linked to hydrogen sulfide, the “rotten egg” gas.