Fein v. Permanente Medical Group (1985) 38 Cal.3d 137, involved the same MICRA provision at issue in this case -- the cap on noneconomic damages found in section 3333.2. In Fein the court rejected due process and equal protection challenges to this provision. In rejecting the due process argument, the court in Fein stated: "As our language in American Bank itself suggests, our past cases make clear that the Legislature retains broad control over the measure, as well as the timing, of damages that a defendant is obligated to pay and a plaintiff is entitled to receive, and that the Legislature may expand or limit recoverable damages so long as its action is rationally related to a legitimate state interest." (Fein, supra, 38 Cal.3d at p. 158.) The Fein court further stated with regard to section 3333.2: "Although reasonable persons can certainly disagree as to the wisdom of this provision, we cannot say that it is not rationally related to a legitimate state interest." (Fein, supra, 38 Cal.3d at p. 160.) And even clearer and plainer, the court stated: "It is clear that section 3333.2 is rationally related to legitimate state interests." (Fein, supra, 38 Cal.3d at p. 158.) The Fein court further stated: "We know of no principle of California -- or federal -- constitutional law which prohibits the Legislature from limiting the recovery of damages in a particular setting in order to further a legitimate state interest." (Id. at p. 161.) The court explained those legitimate state interests as follows: "The Legislature was acting in a situation in which it had found that the rising cost of medical malpractice insurance was posing serious problems for the health care system in California, threatening to curtail the availability of medical care in some parts of the state and creating the very real possibility that many doctors would practice without insurance, leaving patients who might be injured by such doctors with the prospect of uncollectible judgments. In attempting to reduce the cost of medical malpractice insurance in MICRA, the Legislature enacted a variety of provisions affecting doctors, insurance companies and malpractice plaintiffs. Section 3333.2, like the sections involved in American Bank, Barme and Roa, is, of course, one of the provisions which made changes in existing tort rules in an attempt to reduce the cost of medical malpractice litigation, and thereby restrain the increase in medical malpractice insurance premiums. It appears obvious that this section -- by placing a ceiling of $ 250,000 on the recovery of noneconomic damages-- is rationally related to the objective of reducing the costs of malpractice defendants and their insurers." (Fein, supra, 38 Cal.3d at pp. 158-159.)