It's truly amazing just how quickly even the most incompetent politicians can act when it suits them, or when there's money to be made in doing so.
I wrote a few weeks back about Proposal 1, and how the state House and Senate completely failed at doing their jobs, and as such, decided to try and force Michigan voters to pull the trigger on a gun aimed at their own heads with an absolute disaster of a ballot proposal. But this week, the Senate approved a bill that would put a cap on benefits paid to auto accident victims, gives insurers far more power to determine what the cost and level of care should be for them, and does so without any promise of a long-term decrease in your premium. And an appropriation for a research grant included in this also ensures that this bill can never come up for repeal or challenge at the polls.
Let that sink in for a moment: the same state legislature that can't fix the roads without passing it off on the voters, can agree on a bill to take away benefits from accident victims and will never allow voters to challenge or repeal it.
I'm overwhelmed by the irony.
As one might imagine, those who actually have to deal with the consequences of this legislation are rather opposed to it. They point out that a new fund, staffed by gubernatorial appointees, would be created to deal with new cases, though the term "fund" is used loosely, because that particular apparatus doesn't appear to be funded by anything, yet would somehow pick up costs for said cases, which would now be capped at $545,000 in lifetime benefits. And with the provisions in this bill that would set caps on how much family members can be paid as caregivers, fewer people will be able to afford to stay at home and take care of their loved ones on a full-time basis, instead forced to leave them at home alone to work elsewhere, or leave them in more expensive facilities, as they struggle to make ends meet.
And for all of that, what are we getting out of this? A break of $8.33 a month over the next two years. And that's it. No assurance of lower rates beyond that, as a proposed amendment that would have guaranteed a set percentage decrease was rejected by the Senate insurance committee, whose chairman, Joe Hune, the sponsor of this bill, has received over $108,000 to date in campaign contributions from insurance companies.
Got to save money somewhere to pay for all those politicians, I suppose.
For all the screaming about how the MCCA is responsible for the ridiculous premiums paid in this state, consider this: On average, Michigan's rates are more than double the national average. More than $1000 above that average, in fact. (And an additional $1000 above that if you live in Wayne County.) The MCCA is funded by a $186 per year charge per vehicle included in your insurance premium. If the numbers the Freep reports are accurate, then what explains the other $800-900 charged above the national average here, and how is changing the catastrophic care fund doing much of anything to lower rates? And mind you, this doesn't change how the MCCA is funded, only how it's spent. (Of course, if you're that worried about that, there's a easy solution: make it part of your license plate registration. Not only are you then collecting from those who drive uninsured, but you're also lowering the cost for everyone else by spreading it out among the million or so drivers who do so.)
Once again, we're expected to believe that if this goes through, that insurance companies, an industry well known for their compassion and generosity, will lower our rates, when there is absolutely no evidence, to back up that assertion. In fact, the executive director of the Insurance Institute of Michigan admits that rates won't drop significantly, if at all, if this bill passes. Sure, there's the two year price freeze, but that only ensures they have to wait two years before raising rates again. But we're supposed to buy into this theory, perpetuated by the Tea Partiers of the world that scream about free markets and less government, that insurers will willingly lower their profit margins out of the goodness of their hearts. Because setting caps on in-home care costs is letting the free market work, right? Or does that 'free market' only apply to whoever's contributing to your re-election campaign?
Failing that, they'll insist that it's fraud jacking up your rates, as though the 14,000 cases ongoing in this state that qualify under the MCCA are all just a bunch of scam artists, mooching off the system. Keep in mind: to even have reached the point where the MCCA is paying anybody, there has to have been $530,000 in medical bills. Suffice it to say, nobody racks up half a million dollars in medical bills just scamming the system, but that's the compassion of your insurance company for you. And for every legitimate case of healthcare providers bilking the system, there are as many, if not more, cases where the insurers try and deny valid claims. Do what you need to in order to prevent insurance fraud, sure, but the insurers need to be held to the same standard.
Never mind that there's several billion dollars in surplus in the fund (to the point where one lawmaker proposed raiding it to pay for the roads), clearly the MCCA is a broken system and needs to be phased out, to hear it's detractors tell it. If that's the case, then the books need to be made public, because there's no way the system should be broken with that kind of (alleged) surplus money. Of course, the insurance companies have no obligation to make theirs public either, and that needs to change. And if that is the case, there needs to be some assurance in the law that this fund won't be raided for other purposes; no doubt it's killing our legislature to have money sitting around they can't spend away.
Clearly there's things that need fixing under the current no-fault system in Michigan, and it might even be possible to lower insurance rates without eliminating no-fault. But this atrocity of a bill does nothing to solve any of them, and only serves to harm those who need the medical care the most, while lining the pockets of insurance companies in the process.
It's clear to see where Lansing's priorities are. And they should be absolutely ashamed.
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