Indiana Auto Insurance Quote Info
Casualty insurance coverages, including Indiana auto insurance quote, auto insurance quotes and workers compensation, pay a significant amount for medical care each year. Total medical care expenditures by property/casualty liability insurance coverages equal some $24.7 billion annually. Yet compared to our total universe of almost $700 billion in health care costs, the property/casualty portion seems relatively small. For that reason, we commend the subcommittee for realizing that property/casualty issues are more important to the overall health care debate than simple numbers might suggest, and for taking the time to examine the effect which the President's legislation could have on these complex systems. Workers compensation and auto insurance are much more than medical care delivery mechanisms -- they also are disability management systems.
The president Administration's Health Security Act seeks to include, somehow, the medical components of property/casualty coverages. The 1,300-plus page bill is organized into 12 titles. Title X deals specifically with the integration of workers compensation and auto insurance.
Title X of the Health Security Act, as currently drafted, would have a negative impact upon U.S. auto insurance system. Each year, auto insurers pay out some $13.5 billion for medical treatment of those injured in auto accidents. In some cases, these payments are for first-party coverage, and in some cases, for third-party coverage. Twenty-six states have what is called "no-fault" insurance, where an individual's own insurer compensates their losses, regardless of who may have been at fault for an accident. No-fault is a proven method for reducing litigation. Under Title X, these twenty-six states might be forced to return to a third--party auto insurance system. As a result, litigation in those states -- and the substantial costs which inevitably accompany litigation -- would increase.
Because payment for medical services is a significant role for auto insurers, we recognize that there are problems with the medical component of SR22 insurance quotes. As evidence of that fact, one need only note that the average amount paid for bodily injury claims due to auto accidents rose nearly 109 percent from 1998 through 2007. The costs we see often have been inflated by statutory constraints on insurers. Cost shifting and medically unnecessary procedures in some cases contribute to this problem.
The President Administration health care reform plan deals with auto insurance medical benefits in two steps:
* Auto insurance medical would be "coordinated" with the new health care system, i.e., financing would remain with auto insurers, but delivery of medical benefits would come through the health insurance system; and,
* A commission would study and devise a plan to fully integrate auto insurance medical benefits into the new national health care system (i.e., both financing and delivery of benefits would come through the health insurance system).
The asserted goal of the first step -- coordination of benefits -- is worthwhile. Coordination of auto insurance with a new national health care system is a sound, sensible idea, if it is done correctly. However, the approach which H.R. 3600/S. 1757 takes toward coordination is seriously defective. For example, the bill does not deal at all with the pressing problem of duplicate medical payments for the same injury, or the "collateral source rule" that makes such redundant payments possible.
