Brain Injury Association of Michigan President Tom Constand Urges Lawmakers a No Vote on Lame Duck No-Fault Bills
CPAN Supporters Encouraged to Continue Contacting Their Lawmakers
The following article was prepared for CPAN by Brain Injury Association President and CEO Tom Constand:
Just as they thought we weren’t looking, a group of legislators have proposed legislation that would drastically change Michigan’s Auto No-Fault system. These changes are objectively worse for all Michiganders, especially the most vulnerable in our community: children and seniors.
Based on the language present, this bill would place a cap on pedestrians, bicyclists, and others hurt in auto accidents, which would include passengers. If those passengers do not have their own insurance, which some seniors and all children do not, then there would be a $400,000 cap placed upon the care they receive. For an eight-year-old child, who could live another 80 years, that amount would not be anywhere close to enough.
Back in July, nine bicyclists were hit by a motorist in Kalamazoo. Under this bill, the surviving seriously- injured bicyclists would have only received $400,000 for the care needed to recover from injuries they were not at fault for. Luckily, the four survivors of that collision are covered by No-Fault as it currently stands. Future survivors will not be as fortunate if this bill is allowed to pass.
This bill also caps the amount of hours No-Fault will pay for family-provided attendant care at 56 hours per week, or 8 hours per day. This will force families of those seriously injured who need round-the-clock care to hire more expensive commercial nursing care to cover the remaining 16 hours a day.
And finally, contrary to what proponents of this bill say or believe, there is nothing in this legislation that provides for any kind of auto insurance rate reduction This bill is designed with the insurance companies solely in mind and they are the sole beneficiaries of it. Even the spokesperson for the Insurance Institute of Michigan said yesterday that the new proposal “would not result in immediate savings,” and that they “think this will limit increases in the future.” That does not equate to a rate reduction.
This is yet another cost-shifting measure for the insurance companies from themselves to the taxpayers. Previous studies have shown the caps this bill proposes will shift the costs from private insurers to Medicaid and Medicare. We should not bear the burden of this short-sighted proposal.
No one expects to get into an auto accident, certainly none of the survivors of the 53-car pileup on I-96 on December 8th did, but accidents do happen and Auto No-Fault helps keep people from going bankrupt to cover medical and rehabilitative costs. I urge the legislature in Lansing to strongly consider how this bill is wrong for Michigan, wrong for motorists, and wrong for those this bill leaves behind.
